


Keep By My Side (whatever the weather)

by iGoogle



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Friends to Lovers, Greg/Louis is fairly nonexistent, M/M, Matchmaking, Pining, Smut, Sorry Not Sorry, more psychobabble than originally intended, several marine mammals, some angst/anxiety
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-08
Updated: 2015-08-08
Packaged: 2018-04-10 19:32:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4404563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iGoogle/pseuds/iGoogle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>the one where all the underhand slight and mastermind planning can't get these two together, but it happens anyway. OT5 adventures in America ensue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keep By My Side (whatever the weather)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [littlepinkbow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlepinkbow/gifts).



> _What you’re feeling_   
>  _It's what I'm feeling too_   
>  _What you’re made of_   
>  _It’s what I’m made of too_   
>  _What are you afraid of_   
>  _Making it better?_
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> \--[Sights](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBxxEyVIdO4), London Grammar

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the first day of Christmas, true love gives Harry Styles a major boner.

Well, the accuracy of that is arguably inexact. Or maybe it’s not at all true, actually. It isn’t the first day of Christmas as much as it is merely the first day back from winter break. Not to mention Harry doesn’t currently yet have a true love.

But anyway, there’s snow and they’ve yet to take down their decidedly tasteless Christmas lights (courtesy of Liam), and Harry is hard and the principle still holds, so who fucking cares?

The fact of the matter is Louis Tomlinson gives Harry Styles serious wood.

It isn’t even something overtly sexual about him. Yes, Louis may have very attractive collarbones. And yes, Harry may or may not fantasise away hours of his life all due to Louis’ very real and very devastating morning scruff. And God _, yes_ , Louis may be the very proud owner of what can only be genetically inherited, superbly majestic facial bone structure. But Harry wishes that were it, because goddammit, isn’t that enough?

Apparently, no, it is not. Not by a long shot.

Instead, it’s how Louis returned from his break all tired and sun-kissed, skin more tan than any self-respecting Englishman has a right to be, as though he’d just come back from a leisurely trip to L.A. and not bloody Doncaster to visit his family. It’s the way he shuffled into the flat in a rumpled jumper and honest-to-God _jeggings._ The worst part is that the jumperwas at some time in the past probably Zayn’s, who likely stole it from Liam, and the point is it’s too big on him. The damned sleeves go on for miles, covering his hands. Louis could burrow into it and there would be leftover fabric. He’d just stood there in the kitchen begging for a cuppa, looking for all the world like a worn out bunny.

Harry is attracted to an actual baby animal, for Christ’s sake.

It’s just not okay: for one, he can’t risk any more inopportune boners anywhere near the kettle or stove, mainly because it is an unlikely and terrifying fire hazard, but also because getting hard in the kitchen...it’s just wrong, Christ. Harry’s right hand (and more often than not, his left as well) is getting tired of him. At this rate, he’s rather sure arthritis is an actual concern for him. He is developing a life-threatening disease from this crush. Louis Tomlinson will be the death of him.

But alas, Harry is far too young to die, has too much pride and dignity to let it all go to waste— ‘it’ referring to the sheer amount of time he’s put into staring longingly at Louis’ face, at Louis’ hands, at any and almost every body part. Even when Louis isn’t around, like right now, Harry realises he’s preoccupied by thoughts about him anyway. He’s practically made a career out of fancying the boy. In any case, it’s a shitty career path; Harry is an averagely poor college kid and it is clearly mentally and emotionally destabilising.

So, that explains a lot about how he’s spending his Saturday. It’s _pathetic_. He loudly informs his flat mates of this immediately, hoping to be consoled.

“Pathetic doesn’t even cover it, bro,” Niall says emphatically, and so much for consolation, as he stands in front of the drawing board Liam has hung up on their fridge. Before Niall can uncap a marker and begin drawing, Zayn shoots up and grabs it out of his hand.

“Last time you had these, you tried to get high. Also, these are the expensive, scented ones. So, no,” Zayn says shortly and shoves Niall to the ground, taking his place in front of the board.

“Okay, H,” Zayn says in a tone that makes Harry groan. “Let’s get this shit on the road, yeah?” He turns to the board just as Liam walks into the kitchen, holding a six-pack of beer.

“Hey,” he says, smiling. Harry hates them all. “Don’t get started without me.” Liam opens the pack and passes around a bottle opener.

Turning around to the board, Zayn writes something down. He seems unsatisfied and stares a little longer, and begins to draw something else. He finishes and swivels back to look at them, but before Harry can glance at what’s written, Zayn makes a small noise and his eyes light up. He turns back to the board and, with a flourish, adds embellishments. Finally, he faces them and beams proudly.

Harry takes a look at what’s written. “I believe my complete lack of allure has already shot that horse in the face, and you’re all wasting your time.”

Liam tries to figure out how one spells ‘allure’ as Niall takes to rubbing Harry’s back comfortingly. Zayn stares daggers at him.

“Zayn has a point,” Niall says softly. “I mean, remember that time I caught you sniffing Louis’ hair? That was pretty weird.”

Harry frowns at him. “It’s because he used my shampoo... And I was not _sniffing_ , I was—” He’s cut off by Liam, who at least has the decency to look appropriately sympathetic.

“There was last Christmas, too, at the karaoke. You seriously sang _All I want for Christmas is Lou_. He just thought it was _funny_.”

Zayn nods at that, grimacing slightly at the painful memory. He turns to Harry and adds, “H, you need the help. Trust me. Louis walks into the room and you’re like an enamored toddler. You completely lose your backbone, it really is kind of pathetic.”

“I didn’t realise we’d started the shit-on-Harry portion of this event,” Harry says glumly to no one in particular.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Liam says in his comforting manner. “We’re here to help.”

He sounds so earnest Harry actually wants to laugh. The rest of the group looks at him so somberly it seems a little ridiculous. He’s not _that_ hopeless, is he?

Harry coughs and says, “Gosh, guys. You’d think this was a drug intervention for my nonexistent heroin addiction, or something.”

“Harry, this is going to _work._ I can, like, feel it in my soul, bro,” an empowered Zayn says to him.

Harry sighs. He’ll agree, he’ll go along with this plan (what choice does he have otherwise? Pine for another million years?) But he won’t be dragged into it easily, he decides. He still has a few tricks up his sleeves. “What do you call an erasable white board?”

“It’s actually just paper,” Liam says, completely ruining the joke. Harry looks at him, pouting.

“What, then?”

“It’s _re-_ markable. Get it, because—” He’s cut off when Niall throws a beer cap at his head, and Harry prepares to tell him how dangerous bottle caps can be as he detangles the metal from where it’s caught in his hair.

“Thank you, Niall,” Zayn says from his stand in front of them with complete disregard for Harry’s physical wellbeing. He proffers a ruler, wields it like a mighty sword, and points at the board.

Zayn dons a serious expression and looks intensely into Harry’s eyes. “Harry,” he says, “Look at me.” Harry does.

“ _I am the captain now,_ ” he says, and taps twice at his chest, chuckling like he’s just made his best joke. He probably just has, honestly. Liam laughs brightly and claps as well as he can with a beer in his hand. Zayn blushes pleasantly and curtsies, stumbling over his own feet.

Harry looks at the board and sighs. Niall nods sagely. Zayn taps his ruler again and smiles attractively.

** TOP SECRET: Project Clueless Louis **

**_mission: put Harry’s boners to good use_ **

Zayn has dotted all the i’s with hearts and artfully turned the ‘L’ in Louis into a penis. It’s quite apropos, if Zayn says so himself. Which he does, several times throughout the evening.

Harry resigns himself to his fate, and makes only three more bad jokes. Niall keeps a steady supply of alcohol for everyone in the room and after an hour of some serious planning, Liam leaves to get them food.

Harry Styles and his boners are _so_ screwed. Figuratively speaking, of course.

# # #

One fateful year ago, Harry met Louis at his very first American college party. It was a slow, mellow kind of get together, the kind kids around here have right at the beginning of a term—not so much a celebration of anything as it was the mournful loss of freedom to impending assignments and classes and the general feeling of imprisonment and despair that often accompanies the endeavor of pursuing an education.

And though he wasn’t yet aware they were to be flat mates, Harry still doesn’t think there’s anything quite like seeing bright, laughing Louis at a slow, mellow get together. Of course, at that point, Louis was still seeing Greg James. Harry had no idea...

Harry stalks into the kitchen and grabs a beer out of the fridge. As it so happens, this is Harry’s first party in America. That definitely warrants a drink. Or two. He should know better, really, as he gets ridiculously loose very quickly. He looks around fruitlessly and realises he’s not going to find a bottle opener anywhere in this mess. It’s weird, he thinks, that he feels like a guest at this party, even though he’s technically a host, by like, association, or whatever.

On his way out of the kitchen, he attempts to pop the cap open in the door jamb, and gets it after a few tries. As it goes, half of his beer ends up on the linoleum floor. It’s his fourth drink, which explains why he’s a little slow on the uptake, and he quickly rights the bottle. He’s staring intently at the puddle in the entryway of the kitchen when it happens.

Someone rushing into the kitchen slips on the puddle comically, legs and arms flailing like a scene straight out of a vintage children’s cartoon. They slam right into Harry, causing his ill-fated beer to drop sadly and spill onto the floor while he holds on to the stranger. He blinks slowly to focus on the person in his arms and licks his lips, stupidly drawling, “Uh, oops. Hello.”

The stranger in his arms looks up at him, annoyed. “Um, _hi?_ Could you maybe let go of me?”

Harry blinks again and recognises who it is he’s holding with a semi-death grip. It’s Louis Tomlinson, according to Harry’s new flat mate Niall Horan, whom he’d sidled up to and asked nonchalantly, very chill and super suave. It’s the same guy he was interestedly eyeing a few minutes ago from across the room. This is interesting. Or like, cool, even. Harry is definitely drunk.

“Sorry, mate.” Harry helps him up. “It’s just, no one’s ever fallen for me this quickly before.”

For a moment Harry seriously contemplates drowning himself in the spilled alcohol on the floor.

Louis raises a single eyebrow and gives him a withering look that has Harry’s throat suddenly parched.

“Does that line actually work for you,” he asks, and Harry could actually die from his high, raspy voice, “Or do you just get a lot of guys into threateningly slippy situations often?”

It is a testament to Harry’s inebriated state that his brain doesn’t fire a million inappropriate innuendos at him. _Threateningly slippy,_ Jesus. Harry’s almost embarrassingly tall, and he knows he has pretty broad shoulders, but he’s a ridiculous lightweight when it comes to alcohol.

“Um,” Harry replies eloquently. “Sorry about that. I actually should probably clean that up.”

Louis laughs incredulously as though Harry’s suggested they might ditch this party and go skinny dip together. Which...does not sound like that bad of an idea right now, really.

“Sit down,” Louis says. “You’re, like, literally swaying.”

“I’m not. ‘m a little buzzed. I’m not a drunk person, though,” Harry explains, tries to keep his speech clear. He’s having a conversation with Louis Tomlinson, he can do _clear._

Louis hums in agreement, but pulls up a chair from somewhere and shoves Harry into it anyway. “Don’t want you cracking that pretty head of yours.” He pats Harry on the head and moves to look under the sink. He grabs some kitchen towels. “What did you say your name was again?”

“I didn’t,” Harry answers. “You think my head is pretty? You’re Louis Tomlinson.” Somewhere, deep in his subconscious, Harry’s sure some part of his brain is aware that he’s making a complete arse of himself in front of this really fit guy. This particularly useless portion of his brain chooses not to intervene, for reasons unbeknownst to humankind.

Louis looks at Harry as he finishes wiping up the last of the spill. “You’re very well spoken,” he says decidedly, and Harry flushes, pleased. “Plus, you have nice curls. I might just decide to pretend you didn’t make a tit of yourself earlier with that come on.”

“Really?” Does this mean he has a chance?

Louis smirks, and it’s numbingly gorgeous. “Don’t think I won’t,” he says and turns on the tap.

Harry’s still thinking over the implications of that statement when he feels water flick onto his face. Louis stands in front of him with wet hands.

“I’m sorry,” Harry says, but isn’t sure why he’s apologising. “I think I may be a little tipsy.”

Louis huffs a laugh. Harry bites into his bottom lip as his eyes glance over Louis’ collarbones. They’re really nice. He’s wearing a shirt with a scoop neck, and Harry thinks it’s really nice.

“That’s a really nice shirt, Louis Tomlinson.” Does he actually sound like a creepy uncle right now? Is this actually happening?

Louis raises both eyebrows this time and shakes his head. “I think you ought to go home, now. Party’s over for you, bro.”

Harry wants to tell him that he is an actual certified party animal, and that this _is_ his home, sort of: he just moved into this flat this morning. He doesn’t recall much after that, though.

He wakes up to a very, very bright light and someone’s very loud, obnoxious singing. Harry blinks twice and tries not to throw up from the taste in his mouth. He flips over, and it occurs to him that he’s really comfortable.

He’s sleeping in someone else’s bed, covered by someone else’s duvet. Fuck, he can’t tell if this is even his flat. He realises with shame that university in America is getting off to a really rough start.

Harry gets up and makes his way into the living room, tripping over a sleeping body. Looking around, he’s fairly sure he’s still in his flat and somehow made it to a bed without remembering. He recognises that whoever’s singing is actually half-yelling, half-mumbling Lana Del Rey’s _National Anthem_ at alarming decibels. In the kitchen, he sees Louis standing in front of the sink, back to Harry.

“Tell me I’m your national anthem!” Louis does an odd head bang and twirls around. “Sugar sugar how—

Oh. Hello, you.” Louis takes out one of his earphones and smiles at Harry.

“Nice dance routine.” It’s the first thing out of Harry’s mouth, even though he should probably be asking Louis what he’s still doing here, and why he’s shirtless, and how he manages to still look good after an entire night of drinking, presumably. Harry plops down into a chair and bangs his head onto the table, feeling a headache coming on.

He jerks when he feels a cold, wet hand on the back of his neck. Louis laughs and offers him a glass of water and a packet of Advil.

“Looking much better than last night, Curly,” Louis says to him.

“I don’t remember most of last night, actually,” Harry replies sheepishly, and takes a drink of water.

“What?” Louis looks at him with disdain. “You mean you don’t remember the blowjob I gave you?”

Harry chokes on the water in his mouth, and spits most of it into his own lap. “You—You did _what_?”

Louis holds on to the act for a few seconds more, and clutches at his chest in emotional pain. “I thought it was special,” he says, and even in this state, even before he knows Louis, Harry can tell he’s going to like him; the same kind of _like_ that disregards logic and rolls like a snowball off the top of a large hill and two flat seconds later it’s an avalanche he can’t stop. And now he’s making shitty winter metaphors about cute boys he doesn’t remember getting blowjobs from. _Right_. “Do you even _like_ me?”

Harry can’t for the life of him tell if Louis is dead serious or completely taking the piss. “I mean— _yeah,_ but...Wait, are you for real?”

Louis drops his hand and chuckles. “Nah. You did go on an awful lot about liking my shirt last night, though,” he shrugs and slumps down in a chair opposite Harry. “You’re kind of a lightweight, actually.”

Harry feels his headache ebb as he prepares to inform Louis that he is no such thing, when Liam walks into the kitchen.

“Oh. Good morning, Harry.”

Harry grunts in recognition. “Morning.”

Liam walks to the fridge and takes out the milk. He grabs some cereal and Harry notices his wet hair. Of course Liam would have showered by now; he’s probably already been to the gym, too. He seems like the overachieving type that inadvertently takes a shit on everyone else’s mundanely average lives. Harry likes him anyway.

“I don’t get a good morning?” Louis looks at Liam, betrayed. “What, only pretty strangers get treated well in this fine establishment?”

“I see you’ve already met,” Liam nods between Louis and Harry, ignoring Louis’ outburst. Louis frowns. “This is Harry Styles, he’s taking the last room.”

Liam leaves after that and takes his bowl of cereal into the sitting room, weirdly sitting by a sleeping figure on the floor, and begins whispering to them.

“You’re moving in?” Louis asks Harry.

“You live here?” Harry says at the same time. They both laugh.

“I’ve lived here for almost two years, mate. How’d you find this place?”

Harry tells him about coming here from Cheshire, the forum for finding roommates from England in the States, when he came upon the ad. “I met Niall and Liam already,” he says. “They helped me move my stuff up. Well, Liam helped, Niall just sort of watched.”

“Good old Ni, proper Irishman,” Louis nods approvingly. “Don’t ever let him string you into a drinking competition, mind.” Louis gestures over to where Liam sits on the floor. “That one lives here too, he’s Zayn. Zayn Malik, psych major, like me. Liam’s marine biology. And,” he adds dramatically and drops his voice, “Those two are always up to some sort of bum-fuckery. I don’t mean general mischief, either. I mean actual bums and actual, well.”

Louis trails off with raised eyebrows and Harry barks a surprised laugh. He can tell Louis is watching him with gleaming eyes, gauging his reaction. “Very mature,” he says to Louis.

“Well, let me tell you, these walls are paper thin, so invest in some earplugs, mate.”

Harry assures him he’ll look into it.

“Unless,” Louis pauses, and smiles devilishly, “You’re like, _into_ that.”

It doesn’t take Harry long to figure him out, to understand Louis’ brand of humour: the way he likes to run with a joke and see how far he can push it, and how the fact that he pushes boundaries doesn’t always mean he wants to break them.

Harry learns not much later that last night Louis broke up with his boyfriend of four years, Greg. That they’d both come to America together from Doncaster, and that he still feels pretty shitty about it.

“Was gonna see if I could get with you last night,” Louis adds mischievously, “Just to fuck him over. But you were drunk off your arse.” He shrugs. “But forget that, we’re like, proper flat mates now, innit.” He fist bumps Harry and moves to make them both some tea.

Harry is hopelessly torn between glad and crestfallen that he was never Louis’ rebound. It might’ve made living together a tad awkward, but there’s always the chance that it mightn’t have, and besides, Louis’ so fucking _fit._

There’s something else about Louis and the way he looks at and teases Harry in those first few months, the way he demands cuddles from him even though he’s known Harry the shortest out of anyone else living with them—almost like he _knows_ Harry’s utterly enamored with him and strings him along anyway _._ Like he can tell just by _looking_ at him. Harry wouldn’t be surprised, but really hopes that’s not true all the same.

Though, it occurs to Harry, hoping has really done nothing for him thus far; all he has to show for himself a year later is a perpetual boner and a deficit of dignity and shame.

He’s starting the semester with a bang, to say the least.

# # #

Zayn makes sure Harry is at one of his club meetings and that Louis is off doing god knows what before he calls the team into the kitchen. The team consists of him and Liam, and also Niall because he happens to already be in the kitchen.

It’s been a week since he’s convinced Harry that this is a good plan. Paired with a touch of alcohol, Zayn Malik is nothing if not convincing. Good looking, too. But that’s not the important matter at hand here, unfortunate as that may be.

They’re here to focus on Harry’s dilemma, and he doesn’t plan to dilly dally about. He proves his point by snapping his fingers obnoxiously whenever Niall looks dangerously close to falling asleep.

Liam helps Zayn hang up the drawing board onto the fridge again as Niall pulls himself up onto the table.

“Is this still a thing?” Niall asks incredulously. “Why can’t we just throw condoms at ‘em and lock them in a room? They’d be fuckin’ before we could close the door.”

Niall has a point, but Zayn rolls his eyes. “Um, because, Ni,” he says obviously, “we’re a little classier than that.”

Zayn proves his point by uncapping the Sharpie in his hand and drawing a tree on the blank page. Next to it, he writes:

**_Louis and Harry, sitting in a tree,_ **

**_k-i-s-s-i-n-g,_ **

**_First comes love,_ **

**_then comes marriage,_ **

**_then come the fuckers with a baby carriage_ **

Liam proceeds to read it out to them, and Zayn smiles at him proudly.

“This rhyme is a common playground chant here in the Americas, and children use it to tease other kids they think have crushes on each other,” he says smartly. “And since we all know Harry and Louis are just overgrown children, I think there is some truth to be held here, some wisdom to be learned. A ready-hatched plan, if you will.” Zayn clears his throat and looks upon them imperiously.

“You always were a man with a plan,” adds Liam as Zayn smiles appreciatively. He proceeds to snap his fingers loudly several times when he sees Niall yawn.

“Okay, okay, Jesus,” Niall blinks tiredly. “So, we’re supposed to get them to kiss, basically?”

Zayn looks at the board and nods. “Yep. Then Louis will realize he’s actually in love with Harry and they’ll want to have each other’s babies. Well, they’ll more or less get married first, I suppose, but you get the point.” He pauses. “But how do we make them kiss?”

“That’s easy,” Liam raises his hand, like he’s still in secondary school. “Truth or Dare. Or Spin the Bottle.”

Zayn hums noncommittally. It’s a good idea, but Louis wouldn’t be caught dead playing Truth or Dare. He tells them as much.

“Make it a drinking game,” Niall adds excitedly. Let no man say Niall is anything but Irish at heart. “Shots! Anyone who picks truth has to take a shot, so we can dare Louis to kiss Harry. Bam, they’ll fall in love.”

“Yeah,” Liam nods, smiling. “This is like a family board game night or summat. But with alcohol. And no family, because that would be awkward.”

“So,” Zayn says, “Not at all like a family board game night.”

Liam shrugs easily. “It’s still the same idea.”

Zayn admits it’s a good idea, and it is. So, they decide Niall is in charge of the alcohol, and the rest is up to Zayn. He has to admit they make a fairly decent team.

# # #

The next night, Harry stretches out lazily on his side as he checks his torrents for the fourth time. Life hasn’t been very eventful since break ended. He’s spent his time divided evenly between ‘getting back into the groove’ of school, as one professor’s email put it, and vegging out in front of the telly with the lads.  

Niall comes by around ten to offer Harry a late dinner in the form of cold pizza and optional beer. Harry takes the pizza and fucks around on his phone in bed. He’s currently pirating some textbooks for Louis and an unreleased album by his favourite indie band.

Though he fully plans on buying the album when it comes out, occasionally he questions the morality of illegally downloading basically everything. He blames it on Zayn, who insisted on showing him how to work what he gratuitously and vaguely called a ‘simple trick every college kid should know’. The first few times Harry pirated something, it had resulted in the suspension of their internet connection for three days, for which the blame definitely falls to Zayn. They’ve both gotten a lot better at this, granted.

Dutifully, Harry sends off several files to Louis in response to the email he received this morning, empty of anything but textbook ISBNs, signed off with ‘L (monkey, eggplant, and poodle emoji)’, the subject line reading: !!!1!!!!!!11!!!!

While the other files download, Harry tinkers around the flat, cleaning up odd spills and washing a few mugs. He almost calls his sister Gemma, before remembering the time difference and realising she’d have his hide if he woke her up now. He decides instead on reading Wikipedia articles.

In the next half hour, Harry becomes well acquainted with several different breeds of horse, and has become enlightened regarding the delicacy that is fried okra. He bookmarks the page, making a mental note to try it one day and goes on to read about deep fryers. And how does deep fried ice cream work, anyway? How exactly does one go about frying a frozen dessert whilst keeping it cold? More importantly, who would want to do that? Surely only a freak of nature, a deviant child of the Earth, would come up with something so unhealthy and horrendous? As he deeply ponders this great mystery, his thoughts are interrupted by a text from Louis:

_Do u think its possible to die from how monotone a proffesors voice is?_

Harry chuckles mercilessly at that, as he knows Louis is currently in his two hour maths night class. A few minutes later his phone beeps again.

_Oh my god, i think im actually dead_

_also the kid next to me is picking his nails oh my god_

_ive died and gone to hell_

His thoughts turn to Louis and hell, and it occurs to him how very damned he is as he stands in the kitchen lovingly making an unasked for, sure to be appreciated thermos of tea for Louis. It’s not that big a deal if he makes casual decisions regarding how to spend his time around the likeliness of seeing Louis smile. It’s _not_.

Maybe he doesn’t usually stay up this late, sure, and maybe he’s more than a little on edge to walk across campus alone this late, but it’s not a big deal. That’s just what really good friends do. Obviously.

“It’s not a big deal, it’s not,” Harry whispers to himself nuttily as the water boils.

“What’s not?” A voice behind him says, and Harry startles, having forgotten Niall was still awake.

Thankfully, he’s well away from the kettle, so his movements don’t upset the boiling water. It occurs to him that making tea for Louis has twice now put him in the position of possible bodily harm. Sure, he’s okay now, but one of these days…

“Uh, it’s not,” Harry says slowly. “It’s not hot enough.” He points at the water. “Louis likes it piping hot.”

Niall looks pointedly at the water boiling over and glances back at Harry. “Hmm,” he comments, and opens the fridge. Harry finishes making the tea in silence.

“ _Hmm_ , what?” he asks Niall before he leaves the flat. “What do you mean by _hmm_?”

“Nothing, just, you’re making tea. For Louis. Who is currently on the other side of campus,” Niall says.

“So what?” Harry frowns at him. “Since when were you a detective, Sherlock? Anyway, it’s just tea.”

“Tea is not part of the plan,” Niall singsongs softly as he sits on the couch. Harry chews his lip.

“There is no plan, Niall. That’s not going anywhere,” Harry says. He pauses. “Plus, what Zayn can’t see, can’t hurt him.” He gives his most threatening glare to Niall and walks out of the flat.

As he walks across campus briskly, trying not to think too much about what might be lingering in the shadows, his mind wanders to a time when it wasn’t so normal to do this. They’d gotten on weirdly fast from the start, and they’d become best mates in that ridiculously fast way one does when they meet someone and fall in friend love for about two months, before realizing they didn’t know each other well enough to keep up hour long conversations.

Harry and Louis are like that, only theirs has been a yearlong conversation, and their friendship has yet to weirdly and uncomfortably wane in the way friendships are bound to. From the sidelines, Harry’s had friends who have come and gone, friends who’d watch the two of them and smartly comment that they must have known each other decades.

One time last year, Harry had dragged Louis along to lunch with two new classmates, Nick and Grace. As they waited on their food, Grace made a clever pun about buns. Louis looked confused, and a split second before he got the joke, Harry had said to them, “Give him a second.” Right after, Louis was laughing with the rest of them.

While that part never really struck Harry as weirdly important, the way Nick had looked between the two of them and commented, “You two really _are_ close”, was more validation than Harry ever needed.

Louis never did warm up to Nick, but Harry doesn’t keep up much with him anymore anyway.

Harry tries not to let his smile give everything away as he hands a sleepy and tired Louis the thermos of tea he brought along with him. Yorkshire, steeped for five minutes, unsweetened—the way tea is supposed to be.

According to Louis, in any matter.

# # #

Zayn decides he’ll convince Louis, since Liam would just be too nice about it and Niall would probably give him the wrong information. He’s the right one for this: suave, but also rough enough to guilt Louis into staying home.

_Hey Lou u need to stay in 2nite aha :) x_

**_why_ **

**_i was gonna go out with Stan_ **

_we’ll have drinks here_

_Harrys staying in too, we all are_

_bring Stan, idc aha :) xx_

The moment Harry gets Liam’s text about a board game night, he excitedly goes straight to the back of his closet and grabs Scrabble. He’s always secretly known the day would come when he could justify even owning this. He takes it out to the sitting room table and tries to set up. Zayn stops him.

“H, what on Earth are you doing?”

“I wanna play Scrabble,” Harry says, like it’s not obvious.

Zayn shakes his head and walk into the kitchen, comes back out with a shot of clear liquid. He hands it to Harry. “It’s not actually a night for board games, Harry.”

Harry downs the shot and screws up his face. He hates vodka. “Then why’d Li say it was? Are we gonna watch a movie?”

Zayn rolls his eyes at Harry endearingly. “No, mate. You’ll see. Just wait till everyone gets here.” He helps Harry pack Scrabble back into its box.

As it turns out, it was a horrible idea to mandate that whoever picked truth had to take a shot, because it just makes _all of them_ pick truth (Zayn blames this oversight on Niall, he _knows_ Louis loves to get sloshed), so they’re all just sitting there buzzed, listening to Harry ramble on about how yeah, he’s still pretty down about the fact that his first kiss didn’t involve _any_ tongue, and yeah, it might not be his darkest secret, but it’s his most heartfelt, whatever the fuck that means. Liam’s the only one listening anyway, and Louis decides to take matters into his own hands.

“Hazza,” he says, and kicks into Harry’s thigh with his big toe to get him to _shut up, Jesus_ , and he takes the bottle from Liam. They’re spinning an actual bottle, for Christ’s sake. Zayn’s just on this side of drunk where he thinks it’s actually pretty retro or meta or whatever, and not at all lame.

Louis spins the bottle with a flourish, and makes a comment about showing everyone here how it’s done. The bottle points to Liam, who is possibly the only one in attendance not taking shots for no reason and probably the only one who knows or cares about the rules at this point.

Louis grins at him and says, “You have to pick dare, because there’s been too many truths.” He sounds eerily akin to a bossy child on a playground, which may essentially be a very apt description of Louis Tomlinson.

“That’s not even a thing,” Liam protests. “That makes no—” He stops when Zayn elbows him in the shoulder. Even this drunk, Zayn knows that they need to take dares, dares are good; dares will make Louis kiss Harry. He’s such a bloody good friend. Liam concedes, albeit sulking, and only frowns slightly when Louis dares him to do a body shot with someone other than Zayn.

Liam picks Harry, of course, on account that Niall still has braces in his teeth, he’s not close enough with Stan, and he wouldn’t want Louis anywhere near him in any sort of compromising position, not since last year’s gym fiasco. Liam still has a scar on his left calf, but that’s neither here nor there.

Harry finds himself sprinkling salt down the middle of Liam’s stomach, trailing to the tequila pooling in his belly button, and wonders how his university life has become one spent playing lame teenager party games. The alcohol trails down Liam’s sides, since Louis insisted there wasn’t enough and poured more till it spilled over, all the while complaining about Liam’s small belly button. It’s his way of saying Liam’s abs are an actual violation, to like, human rights. And any other living organisms’, for that matter.

Licking up the salt with a wet tongue, Harry screws his eyes shut and tries not to think about how he doesn’t much fancy the taste of tequila, much prefers sweeter drinks, likes pretty flutes of champagne and fruity cocktails with cute little umbrellas, but nobody does a body shot with _champagne_. That, in turn, makes him think of what he _does_ like instead, and that particular strand of thoughts always leads to the same, predictable dead end.

He lets his tongue slide over the salt again before lapping up the alcohol, and lets himself think for a moment how it would feel to take a body shot off Louis instead. How his stomach would probably be so much softer, creamy skin shifting under Harry’s tongue, unable to keep still. At that thought, he mindlessly scrapes his teeth into the smooth skin under the belly button, feeling the muscles jump under him. He only opens his eyes enough to locate the green of the lime, before reaching for it with his mouth. He’s biting into it when he remembers that this isn’t Louis, it’s Liam, and that Louis is actually watching, and it’s completely inappropriate, but he’s getting a little hard.

He pulls back and spits the sour slice onto the floor, catching Louis’ eyes as he does so.  He folds his knees into himself, tries to maintain at least a modicum of modesty, and can’t stop his cheeks from colouring when he realises Louis is still watching him. Harry looks resolutely elsewhere.

After a few turns, Harry suspects he’s being used when Liam lands on Niall, and dares him to kiss Harry. He doesn’t mind as much as he probably should, and holds his arms out to catch Niall when he jumps into his lap. Harry sends up a small prayer thanking whatever god exists that his boner has finally gone down. Things could’ve gotten awkward quickly.

Kissing Niall isn’t disappointing, to say the least. He’s got a soft mouth, which is great considering Harry hasn’t kissed anyone in a while. It should be a little weirder when Niall slides a tongue over Harry’s lips, but Harry just parts them and meets him in the middle. It’s hard to pretend this is anyone but Niall, he’s so bony in Harry’s arms, and he can feel the metal of his braces against his tongue. It’s the best platonic kiss he’s ever had.

“God, we’re not filming a porno, you two,” Louis says, and Harry feels a small hand latch onto his arm and squeeze. “That’ll do. That’ll do. _That’ll do_.” He lets himself be pulled back, and, if only for a second, likes how grounding it feels when Louis touches him.

He still feels a little dazed when Niall’s spin lands on Louis, and he’s fairly sure this is actually a weirdly erotic wet dream his subconsciousness has formed to torture him. He’s being tortured by himself. He’d ask Zayn about it, but can’t stop the inhuman, animalistic noise that escapes him at the sight of Zayn’s hands resting easily on Louis’ hips, watches, unashamedly invested, as he gives Louis an easy, chaste kiss that still has Harry’s stomach twisting in a confused, turned-on flip.

Some turns later, Harry is 95% sure this really is a wet dream, and that Liam has it in for him.

It seems like they’ve been playing for an eternity, but they’re all too fucked to care at this point. Liam spins on Louis.

“Um,” he says, and Zayn stares at him so intently it’s funny, but only because he probably thinks he’s being slick. Niall takes a shot for no reason. “Truth or dare?” Liam is, predictably, the only one playing fair.

“Dare!”

“Okay, well. I think you, um. Could you please kiss Harry, please?” Zayn gives him a look of utter disgust and turns to Louis.

“Liam dares you to kiss Harry,” he says in a voice he probably thinks is commanding, but just comes out very slurred. “Nicely,” he adds.

“Okay,” Louis says suspiciously. He gets on his knees and leans towards Harry. He gives him a peck on the cheek. The point of contact burns on Harry’s skin.

“Wha-” Zayn exclaims. “That’s cheating!”

“Is not,” Louis says as he sits back down. “You said kiss, and that’s what I did, I kissed him _nicely_. So shut up.”

“That’s not fair,” Niall says, “I practically ‘ad me tongue down his throat!”

That makes Louis frown and turn back to Harry decisively. He leans in close enough that it almost makes Harry’s face feel ticklish, sensitive, and he can smell the alcohol on Louis’ breath. He has to remind himself not to squirm.

Louis looks him straight in the eye and smiles. Harry tries to tell Louis he doesn’t have to do this, but his face feels weirdly numb.

“I’m going to deflower you now,” Louis says in warning, and Harry almost laughs, but there’s Louis, putting a warm hand on his cheek and dragging a thumb across his bottom lip.

It’s as unfussy a kiss as Louis and Zayn’s, but if Niall’s lips were soft, he doesn’t know how he’d describe this. Louis’ drag against his for a moment, so supple it’s easy to pretend they’re wet. One second his brain is all fireworks, and the next Louis has backed off with a pat to Harry’s thigh.

It’s barely past midnight now, and Harry’s already run the gamut between horny and confused several times now. In the end, it’s Stan who makes him almost instantaneously combust. He’d sort of forgotten Stan was here, actually.

“Louis,” Stan points at him after a bottle spin, “Suck Harry’s dick.”

It’d be quite crass if Harry hadn’t already had too many shots to count, wasn’t still turned on by everything even slightly related to Louis, wasn’t still thinking about his soft _lips, Jesus._ There’s a split second where it just goes straight to his cock, _suck Harry’s dick_ , and he can see it: can see Louis wrap his dainty hand around him, lick his lips, and—.

Stan laughs from the floor where Louis’ tackled him, and they roll around.

Not long later, Niall orders a few pizzas and Ed comes over to roll a few joints. Much, much later, Harry wraps a spit-slick hand around his cock. He falls asleep irritated and unsated, still too drunk to come.

# # #

So, the kiss worked. It _did_. Zayn has no idea why he’s still thinking about this. It occurs to him that it’s probably because Louis carried on acting like fuck all had happened after he all but made out with Harry. Or maybe it’s because he’s going crazy. He fiddles with the pen in his hand and flips through the papers on the bed in front of him.

He’s staring at the rhyme he’d made last time about Louis and Harry in a tree when Liam comes in, shirtless and with a cup of coffee. Liam sets it down on the bedside table and Zayn spares him a glance. He’s all sweaty from his morning run, still has on the armband to hold his iPod and a chest strap to measure his heart rate, so he doesn’t run too much or something. It figures that Zayn would fancy the only person he knows who is danger of being so healthy they’re unhealthy. Zayn doesn’t particularly care what it does for Liam, but it definitely...does things for him.

“Hey, babe,” Liam says as the bed dips and he sits down, running a hand over his chest.

“Stop,” Zayn groans, and puts his head into his hands, “Stop being sexy all the time, with your _running_ and your _abs_. Some people have things to do, and lives to _live_.”

Liam laughs and doesn’t answer, just lays back down onto the pillows. He runs his hand over his abs, flexing them, the fucking _showoff_ , and smirks at Zayn. “What kind of things have you got to do, then?” He adjusts his hips, drawing Zayn’s gaze from his abs to his running shorts.

Zayn throws the papers in his hand to the floor, and consciously chooses sucking Liam’s dick over ruminating on Louis’ idiocy. It’s a good choice.

He throws his leg over Liam’s middle, settles himself down and tucks a hand in Liam’s hair. He grabs a handful and pulls him back by it, leaning forward to suck a bruise into his birthmark. Liam grunts and his hips roll under Zayn.

“Can I give you blowjob, Li?”

“Yeah? I mean, I’m all sweaty, but yeah, yeah, if you want,” Liam breathes, and Zayn tries not to laugh at the jump in his voice. He’s pretty particular about giving head.

He noses over Liam’s Adam’s apple and licks a stripe to his ear. He tastes like clean sweat, and it makes Zayn’s head spin. “Wanna take you all the way,” he whispers into his ear, “‘til I choke on it. Yeah?”

“ _Fuck_ , yeah, yeah,” Liam says and throws his arm over his eyes. Zayn doesn’t waste any time in getting off him and pulling down Liam’s running shorts and pants. He licks his hand twice, but stops when he sees Liam taking off the chest strap.

Zayn slaps his hands off. “Keep it on,” he says, raising an eyebrow. “Wanna give you a real workout.” He’s vaguely aware this sounds like a line straight out of a porno. He also is not known for his giving of shits.

Still, it makes Liam slam his head back and breathe harshly.

Zayn smiles and thinks, yeah, it really has been a while. He gives Liam a few good tugs before bowing down between his legs and giving a sweet, open mouth kiss to the wet crown of his cock.

“Missed you, big guy,” he whispers, and hears Liam groan. “What? It’s true,” he says and looks up to Liam, who’s still covering his face. He works his thumb over the tip just to watch Liam struggle to keep still.

A second before he can tell Liam’s going to ask him, nicely of course, to _get a move on_ , he licks his lips and takes in a few inches. Liam’s legs fold up and around him, so his head is braced by Liam’s thighs. Zayn drags his hand down to cup Liam’s balls, thumbs under them and lightly brushes the soft skin there. He keeps stroking there, maddeningly soft, as he slides down with his mouth until he’s nosing into Liam’s belly. He swallows around the head of Liam’s cock and simultaneously flicks a dry finger over his arsehole, intoxicated from the way that makes Liam’s thighs tremble.

“Babe. Zayn. _Fuck,_ I’m gonna—”

Liam rambles in the way that he tends to when he’s on the cusp of orgasming. Zayn works the tip of his pinky into Liam, knows how he likes the small burn, and swallows down his cock until he can’t breathe, can barely swallow around it. Liam comes with a grunt and a hand on the back of his neck.

Liam breathes harshly and Zayn lets himself slump on his back lined up next to him. He’s palming over himself slowly and suddenly the answer comes to him before he knows what he’s saying.

“Oh my god, Liam!” He coughs, forgetting that his throat is sore. Liam looks over at him, concerned, and opens his mouth to ask if he’s okay.

“I know what it is! I mean, I know what to do! About Louis!” He so excited he almost falls off the bed trying to grab the papers off the floor. He weeds out the one with the rhyme.

“We got them to kiss,” he says, almost manically, “But we didn’t get them into the _tree._ Liam!” He turns to Liam and looks at him desperately. “We have to get them into the tree first.”

Liam blinks at him, and says nothing. Zayn sighs, and thinks he should feel weirder talking about this with a half-hard dick, but brushes off the thought.

“How do we get them into the tree?” He puts on a puppy face, wills Liam to indulge him.

“We... We could go bird watching?” Liam says meekly “I could get us into the campus preservation field?”

“No,” Zayn shakes his head. “I don’t mean a literal tree. I mean get them alone. Louis’ not going to be comfortable if he’s kissing Harry and everyone is watching; we have to get them alone, and for a long enough time.”

Liam shrugs and thinks about it, but Zayn has already thought of the perfect idea.

He’s definitely going fucking crazy.

# # #

“Yes, actually,” Louis says, matter of fact, to Liam, “I _do_ make it to most of my classes on time. It’s not my fault Harry here takes bloody ages to get out of the shower.”

In a rare show of productivity and seizing the day, Louis has woken up before noon and is making tea, on a weekend nonetheless. Harry would be impressed if Louis hadn’t deemed it an actual crime for him to sleep in if Louis wasn’t, too.

“You missed half your classes before Harry even moved in,” Liam argues. “You’re in your last few semesters. You can’t make it through without making a habit of studying.” Liam’s off on his bi-weekly berating of Louis for his shitty lifestyle. Harry watches on with mixed interest, already having memorized how this particular conversation goes.

He half expects to Louis to go off on Liam, tell him to mind his own business, but Louis just scoffs and goes about making his cereal. There’s no milk, so he sits like a sulky child next to Harry at the table, spooning dry cereal into his mouth.

“You don’t know my life,” Louis says to Liam pettily with a full mouth, flakes of cereal flying onto the table. “How would you know if I studied, anyway? I _do_ study. Harry even quizzes me. Tell him, H.”

Harry has done no such thing with Louis, but he turns to Liam over a cup of tea and assures him that Louis’ studying skills are of the highest order. Minutes later, when Liam tells them he’s off to the library, Louis makes a surprised noise and looks at Harry.

“Imagine that. Haz and I were planning to head down there today. I’ve got a sociology test coming up.”

The fact that Louis isn’t taking a sociology course this semester doesn’t deter Harry from agreeing, although visibly hesitant. Liam waits for them to get ready all the same.

Half an hour later, the three of them have situated themselves into one of the glass-walled studying rooms. Louis sits across from Harry and tests him on astronomy definitions in favour of opening a book himself.

Laid out in front of him is a bag of Swedish Fish, considered practically contraband within the library. Liam informs Louis as much, which only succeeds in making him chew obnoxiously louder.

“Can I at least have some?” Liam sighs and looks dejectedly at Louis.

“Nope.” Louis pops another Swedish Fish into his mouth and smacks his lips. “Much too good for children.”

Harry stares at Louis’ bottom lip where it’s stained red by the sweet candy, and thinks of what it might be like licking that off.

Louis holds out a fish to Harry, misinterpreting his stare. “Here, cutie. Have a fishy.”

Harry opens his mouth wide, and is more surprised than he should be when Louis shoves the sweet in with his whole hand. Harry grabs onto Louis’ wrist, making him laugh as Harry nibbles on his knuckles. Louis, of course, just pushes his fist farther into Harry’s mouth.

Louis pulls back and empties the whole bag of sweets on the table in front of him, abandoning any semblance of being a hardcore study buddy, and shoots basketball style into Harry’s open mouth. One after the other, they bounce off his face or miss completely.

When Harry finally catches one, Louis shoves another into his mouth as a reward. Latching on to his thumb, Harry licks the sugar off the digit and Louis giggles.

God, he’s in love with a boy who _giggles._

“Ugh,” Liam says, “Stop. This is like softcore porn, please stop.”

That makes Louis grab a handful of Swedish Fish and shove them in Harry’s mouth, who moans obediently as Louis pulls his hair back.

“Yeah,” Louis laughs and clamps a hand over Harry’s closed mouth, forcing him to keep it in. “Love it when you just take it, baby.”

Harry can’t hold himself at that, and a laugh forces his mouth open as wet candy seeps over his chin and covers Louis’ hand, who jumps back and falls off his chair. A librarian knocks sternly on the glass door and motions for them to come out.

They’re banned from the library for the rest of the day, and Harry finds he couldn’t care less.

# # #

It fits in nicely with his general life plans, Harry thinks, to be here. Though he would’ve much rather come in the fall, he’s always wanted to do something indisputably _American,_ and after realizing that driving on the wrong side isn’t as fun and daring as it had once seemed, and that American frat parties are frankly disappointing, he figures frolicking in an apple orchard with his mates is the next best thing.

They spent a good half hour at the petting zoo, which was a misnomer, Harry thinks, because a fence ensured you couldn’t actually pet any of the animals. Harry bought at least five paper cups of animal food, two of which Louis, in his usual profligate manner, immediately poured over his ‘favourite’ goat’s head.

They climbed the haystacks like a group of excited kids, and when Ellie unexpectedly reaches the top before any of them, an alarming hour is easily lost to playing King of the Mountain. Ellie, unsurprisingly, wins. Everyone can tell how chuffed Niall is with his new girlfriend.

Louis sits next to Harry as they take the hayride, which runs a circuit from the orchard to the apple picking area to the corn maze. They climb off the ride when it stops in front of the apple trees, and Niall grabs Ellie’s hand as they run towards them. They immediately begin picking apples and tasting them, and Louis joins in. Zayn and Liam walk a little slower towards the group next to Harry, when he’s suddenly included in the conversation.

“Harry,” Zayn says urgently next to him. “We’re going to the corn maze next!”

“Okay, cool.”

“No, not ‘okay, cool’ you idiot,” Zayn stresses. “This is important. You have time alone with Louis, make it count.”

Harry racks his brains for how exactly he might go about making this count. “What’s that supposed to mean? You want me to serenade him in the private and oh-so-romantic shade of the cornstalks?”

Zayn looks at him, horrified, and scoffs. “I have spent far too much of my time to get you this far already, Styles. I’m only doing this so I don’t have to listen to you wanking six nights a week.” Harry wilts at that, mostly because it is shamefully, entirely true.

Zayn looks over his shoulder as he walks away. “Make. It. Count.”

When they get to the corn maze, Zayn insists they treat it as some sort of Hunger Games competition, and they decide dinner is on the last of them out of the maze.

Niall looks ridiculously akin to a chipmunk as he blows strongly into his lucky vuvuzela held in a sweaty palm. It’s the same one he had at the 2006 FIFA World Cup Final, and no one's quite sure why he’s brought it here, exactly. The employee taking a picture of the six of them under the maze entrance startles at the noise and nearly drops Harry’s phone.

They take a picture together— Zayn piggy-backing on Liam and Niall with an arm thrown over Ellie’s shoulder and Louis doing crossed eyes at Harry — before they situate themselves at three separate entrances into the corn maze. Naturally, Louis stands with Harry.

After a short briefing by the attendant on maze safety, Niall blows one last time into the vuvuzela and they head off.

Louis grabs Harry’s hand and tugs him along as he sprints, screaming something about victory.

After a while, Harry starts to lag behind and the rustling of the corn husks around them begins to lose its enchanting feeling, starting to feel more annoying and creepy. It could be because Harry’s never been very fond of mazes in general, not even the printed kinds in kids’ colouring books and magazines, or perhaps it comes down to the fact that he knows a lot about Louis’ sense of direction— or complete lack thereof.

Louis gets lost when they visit the local Costco more often than not, but Harry follows him dutifully all the same, listening to him go on about triumphing over their lesser brethren and nodding along. Harry wipes the sweat off his neck and thinks of several corn and maize puns, deeming them one after the other below him. He has standards.

“Come, young Harold,” Louis beckons as Harry starts to slow down after what seems like an hour. Realistically, it’s probably been fifteen minutes. “Follow, and I shall lead you to salvation!”

“Is that, like, from the Bible?”

Louis looks back at him. “Karl Marx famously called religion the opiate of the people, Harold. I happen to share that opinion, so I’ve never read the book. I have no idea.”

Louis’ wearing fairly tight black trousers, and Harry tries not to stare at the way Louis’ thigh muscles flex every time he takes a step. Well, he doesn’t try very hard. Harry’s only _human,_ after all.

Twenty minutes later, he realises a few alarming things.

The least alarming (at least in the grand scheme of things) is that Harry has, several times now, had inappropriate and frankly dirty thoughts starring Louis’ sweaty collarbones. This is likely due to the fact that Louis is wearing a shirt that Harry is pretty sure he bought for himself some time ago, and the collar hangs loose around Louis’ neck.

Damn Louis to hell and back for his penchant for stealing clothing, Harry thinks as Louis pulls at the collar of the shirt, blowing and fanning at himself. Harry himself shivers slightly at the chill. He does not think of the knowledge that Louis is hot, even in this fairly cool weather. His mind does not immediately trail to how warm skin might feel against his fingertips right now.

More immediately alarming is the fact that time is passing and Harry’s opportunities are wearing thin. He’s clueless at this, though, almost as clueless as Louis when Harry pointedly says that he is cold, and Louis responds by telling him to walk faster and burn more calories for heat, when what he _should_ have done was hand Harry the sweater over his arm.

He makes a point to shiver again rebelliously.

Harry is _trying_ , here. He never signed up for being in love with an actual knob head.

The third matter — Harry can’t decide whether it’s more pressing or not — is that they’ve been in this damn maze for, like, forever now.

“Hey, Lou.”

Louis stops abruptly in front of him and Harry bumps into his back. They stand at a fork in the path, and Louis looks at him. Harry looks back.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

Harry doesn’t answer, because he has no idea what Louis is thinking.

“Eeny meeny miney mo, catch a tiger by its toe, if it hollers let it go, eeny meeny miney mo.”

They take the path to the left. Ten minutes later, they hold a rock paper scissors tournament at another fork in the road, and Harry decides he doesn’t care much about standards.

“Hey, Louis. I guess you could say this is pretty a- _maize_ -ing, even if it is _cornfusing_.”

Louis looks at him tiredly and throws the sweater in his hands at Harry’s face, but he’s smiling. Harry puts it on almost immediately. He’s _cold_.

They walk on, and Louis ironically hums _We Are the Champions_ under his breath. The second Louis swears he’s seen this particular stalk of corn twice, he decides they’ve unwittingly been going in circles for a while now. The decision is unanimous: they’re lost.

While they’re discussing what to do, Louis turns around suddenly and tackles Harry, felling him heavily onto his back.

“Shhh!” he says urgently, eyes wide. “Can you hear that?”

Harry looks into Louis’ eyes, and though he tries to ignore the fact that he has a lapful of hot, sweaty boy on him, he can’t decide if the feeling curling in his stomach is arousal or fear.

Probably both.

He’s fearfully aroused.

“What? Hear _what_?” Harry’s eyes move quickly as he looks around for anything suspicious. “I can’t hear anything!” He whispers, but can hear the slightly desperate tone of his voice.

He’s heard about maze horror stories. People who have come in and never returned, children who haven’t been found, ever. It takes him a split second to imagine his body, rotting remains that will only be found when they harvest the crops. Do they even harvest the corn in corn mazes? He’ll probably never be found.

Louis grips Harry’s shoulders tightly and looks over him, somewhere Harry can’t see. Louis gasps and his eyes widen in horror. Harry screams and scrambles to get up.

Rolling off of Harry smoothly, Louis curls into a ball on the ground. For a moment Harry is convinced he’s paralysed by fear. In actuality, Louis is laughing so hard he’s actually crying a little.

“Oh, my god. Haz. _Hazza_.” Louis coughs a few times and chuckles, pointing at Harry’s face. “You should’ve seen your face!”

Harry assumes this is regarding his deer-in-headlights expression. Even though he’s miffed at Louis, when he catches a glimpse of tummy as Louis rights himself, he forgets to be annoyed and feels a ridiculous dip in his own stomach.

With a shit-eating grin, Louis suggests they wait for a “maze cop” to find them. Harry agrees, pouting, and sits resolutely next to Louis. After a minute of silence, Louis scoots closer to him.

“Hazza,” he says, and pokes Harry’s side. “Aww. Did you get awful scared, Harry?”

Harry pouts harder and crosses his arms. He gets significantly less pouty when Louis pulls out an (old, half-eaten) packet of peanut M&Ms from his pocket, Harry’s favourite.

It grows steadily darker as Louis sorts the candy by colour on Harry’s hands, who holds his palms out dutifully flat. They eat the greens first, Louis feeding them to Harry with quick fingers. They fight over the last brown one, before Louis judiciously decides Harry has to have it, because Louis hates the brown ones anyway.

Harry holds out his sticky hands to Louis.

“Clean them,” he demands. “Your M&Ms did this.” Louis looks at him for second before scoffing, shoving Harry’s hands away.

“You ate more of them than me!” Louis’ eyes watch him carefully.

Harry shrugs and starts licking his own hand in broad swipes, assiduously sucking on the tips of his fingers. He doesn’t _have_ to suck on whole fingers at a time, and the mingling of his own sweat and the sticky leftover M &M residue doesn’t make for a tasty combination, but judging by the fervent, slightly uncomfortable looks Louis is shooting his way, perhaps _this_ is making it count.

Dusk has fallen by the time a young Corn Cop finally stumbles upon them, dutifully chastising them for not using the map on the back of their maze etiquette cards. She leads them out to the exit where they find Zayn in a mostly empty sitting area, half asleep on a bench next to Liam.

Niall and Ellie come back with fresh apple cinnamon donuts and cold water for the rest of them, and they gather around a picnic table in the nearly empty eating area.

“You nearly pissed yourself, I swear,” Louis insists later to Harry as he recounts in great detail, to the pleasure of the rest of the group, what took them so long to get the hell out of the maze.

Harry attempts to assert that he was not actually scared enough to piss himself when Zayn chimes in, uncharacteristically engaged as he tells Ellie about Harry’s refusal to sleep alone during thunderstorms. It’s a low blow, Harry can’t help but think, as Niall laughs along.

“It’s almost pranking season,” Liam adds. “You won’t survive if you’re such a scaredy cat.”

Louis frowns at that.

“Could you watch your tone, please, Liam?” Louis throws an arm over Harry’s shoulder, tugging him in close. Harry follows easily.

They huddle around the table and finish up the donuts just as it starts to get genuinely cold.  

On the ride to dinner (which Harry and Louis are buying but no one is very hungry for), Harry falls asleep slowly in the backseat, and his head lolls involuntarily onto Louis’ shoulder. Inexplicably and all at once, a feeling of pre-nostalgia rolls over him just as he slips into unconsciousness, and the sticky apple-sweet sweat smell of Louis mingled with the smell of hay and dirt the rest of them carry fills his nose as he drifts off.

# # #

Liam stands tall in front of the drawing board as he confidently adjusts his bowtie. He hasn’t worn the thing since his presentations for the honors program, which was two years ago. He’s forgotten how itchy it gets. Still, certain situations simply require bowties, and this one definitely does.

Niall and Ellie, who has been recruited last minute to make up for the absent Zayn, look on from their place on the sofa.

“Ellie,” Liam says kindly to her, “You’ll be taking the place of Zayn today, if that’s all right.” After a moment’s thought he adds, “I suppose you should act like him, since he isn’t here and you’re filling in.”

“Okay,” she says. “How do I act like Zayn?”

“Just nod like you’re totally contemplating everything on a deeper level than anyone else,” Niall puts simply. “And oh, you have to go on a tangent about what idiots Harry and Louis are about every five to six minutes.”

Ellie nods like this is normal fare— insignificant Sunday morning, and Liam begins to explain his master plan.

“Okay,” he begins dramatically. “I want to stick your plan with the riddle, Zayn,” he says, nodding to Ellie, who smiles back and nods. “But I want to do something a little differently.”

Liam uncaps a marker, watermelon scented, and writes in bubbly pink letters _Zeigarnik Effect_. He clears his throat.

“So, you know when you hear a really catchy pop song, and suddenly have one single part of it stuck in your head for days? And you can’t stop your brain from repeating it, so you just keep thinking it until you hate the song?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Ellie supplies, and nods along convincingly as though this is a PhD dissertation, and not a ridiculous matchmaking attempt.

“Well,” Liam says excitedly pointing to the board, “Harry and Louis are just like that! Well, sort of. See, there’s something called the _Zeigarnik Effect_. Basically, Zayn told me about this a while ago to help me with my studying. The theory is your brain will continue to bring up what it feels are unfinished tasks. So if you’re studying, that essentially means you should take breaks in the middle of sessions, so your brain can keep remembering the information you’ve learned.

“And so, in the case of the catchy pop song, you sing the part stuck in your head, and keep going until you’ve sung the whole song. You’ll probably stop thinking it, because your brain will no longer feel like something has been left half finished. In the case of Harry and Louis...Um,” Liam pauses and scratches his arm.

“I guess we just skip to the end of the plan, and get them married,” Liam finishes and looks at them unsurely. He hadn’t actually gotten this far in his preparation for this meeting. So sue him, Zayn called last minute.

Ellie strokes her chin thoughtfully next to Niall and looks soulfully at the board as though pondering the greater purpose of human existence. “Yeah, I agree,” she says finally. “Harry and Louis are not very bright, and this is a, uh, solid plan.”

# # #

Harry’s not quite sure how Louis convinces the rest of them that he’s fully capable of making a suitable meal for a group of adults. He puts it down to Louis’ devilish charm. Not that there’s much Harry can do to change it at this point, anyway.

It’s a dinner they have near the middle of each semester, where they all get together and pretend they carry at least a small semblance of adulthood and have some nice food and wine with friends.

It’s also the first time Ellie will be joining them for the traditional meal, so Niall’s made Harry promise to tag along with Louis to the market. Not that he wouldn’t have either way, but he’s particularly glad he did when Louis tells him he’s thinking of making a whole turkey.

“Lou, that takes more than five hours. And you have to marinate it overnight, I think.” Harry grabs his hand and steers him through the freezer aisle. “Do some nice chicken, or some ground beef.”

Louis wrinkles his nose and informs Harry that he’s being a proper party pooper, but grabs chicken breasts all the same. They wander around the store as Louis reads a recipe off his phone, and they gather the things they need. (Louis throws in crisps and cookies when he thinks Harry’s not paying attention. Harry puts them back when Louis isn’t looking).

Harry drags him to get the ingredients for the fruit tarts he’s decided to make, when Louis starts whining.

“H. Harry. Harry. _Hazza_.” Louis jabs at him roughly until Harry looks away from where he’s been debating the merits of pastry dough over filo dough.

“ _What?”_

“This is your first time at a Kroger!” Louis looks at him with gleaming eyes, smiles like the time he convinced him pantsing Liam on a treadmill was a good idea, or balancing a bucket of ice water on a door was a worthy first prank. (It’s not, because Harry forgot it was there and Louis still teases him to this day about _wetting himself_ ). He’ll probably do as Louis suggests, anyway. He lets himself smile back.

It is the first time he’s been to this particular grocer, but it doesn’t seem so significant as to warrant Louis’ excitement. “So...” Harry trails off with raised eyebrows.

In answer to his question, Louis streaks off running down the aisle, and yells over his shoulder, “Come on, Curly!” A startled old woman looks at Louis, then Harry. He shrugs at her and smiles, like, _what can you do?_

So Harry tries to keep up, runs after him while balancing the basket of goods on his arm, and he doesn’t remember the last time he’s laughed this hard. He turns a sharp corner after Louis when his basket knocks over a stack of Ritz Crackers an unsuspecting employee has been stocking.

After he’s a apologised for at least two minutes and convinced the worker, whose name is Emily, to let him help, he finds himself engaged in a conversation discussing the virtues of original flavour Fritos. Emily is in the middle of explaining, _yeah,_ they may be greasy as hell, but they’re great when you’re stoned out of your mind. Harry nods his agreement and is about to tell her he really hadn’t looked at it that way before, when someone pinches his bum.

He lets out a squeak and turns around to find a very disgruntled Louis, arms crossed.

“Harold, I’ve literally looked all over the store for you. Please do keep up.”

Harry apologises one last time and makes sure Emily doesn’t need any more help. She lets them go, but not before commenting on how cute they are. She doesn’t say it, but it’s implied: she thinks they’re a cute _couple._

Louis purses his mouth, but Harry’s sure he can see a flush high on his cheeks.

“Well, yes, we’re very cute,” Louis says, flustered, threading an arm around Harry’s waist, “And now we’re very late, so I’m ‘fraid we’re off.”

Harry lets himself be guided through the aisles, and Louis moves the hand on his back in favour of tugging on the button on his jacket sleeve. It’s alright.

It turns out the super cool thing Louis wanted to show him is in the deli section: it’s the lobster tank. Which turns out to be surprisingly cool, actually.

“Ooh! And there he goes,” Louis whispers dramatically, “That’s definitely a knockout if I ever saw one. Oh, no. Looks like he’s not done yet. This is getting violent.”

They’re hunched in front of the lobster tank like little kids, and Louis is, unsurprisingly, a great commentator on lobster wrestling matches. Harry’s nose is inches from the cool glass, blowing small circles of condensation.

“Look at this one!” Harry points excitedly at a smaller lobster, mottled pinks fading into blooming red. “They’re all so pretty.”

Louis hums and turns to Harry. “I show you the coolest things, Styles. What would your life even be without me guiding you?”

Harry pauses, giving him a grin. “I guess you could say I’d _flounder_ through.”

Louis looks at him flatly.

“Flounder,” Harry says. “Like the fish, but I—”

Louis smacks him on the head with a box of filo dough. Harry is so underappreciated, honestly.

“I wish I could, like, set them all free,” Harry says wistfully, watching as one lobster slowly crashes its claw onto the head of a nearby friend. He drags his finger over the glass, follows the movement. He thinks he’s falling in love with the creatures.

“We could. I mean– we could get one.”

Harry turns his eyes to Louis, and realizes he’s serious.

“Yeah,” Louis continues, “I mean, Liam’s a bloody marine bio major, what else is he good for? He could get us the–”

Harry stops listening at that point and hurriedly unlocks his phone, typing into the Google search bar:

_how to care for a grocery market lobster_

All the entries are about how to _cook_ lobsters from markets, and Harry is reminded that this is a fairly extreme, spur-of-the-moment kind of decision, even if Louis technically planted the idea. He searches again anyway.

_keeping supermarket lobster as pet_

That brings up enough results for them to come up with an appropriate plan of care for the lobster they purchase: a cute, relatively small one, whose tail is a shocking red.

They get home and wrap the crustacean in damp newspaper. As per the instructions they’ve gathered from lobster care websites, Louis makes space in the freezer, where they carefully place the bundle of paper and slow moving lobster until they can arrange something more permanent.

As Louis sets about making the kitchen relatively presentable and Harry gets the groceries ready, they decide they can fill their bathtub up, setting up a temporary home for their new lobster. Harry looks up how much salt they need to mix into the water as Louis searches around in the pantry for a thermometer. When he finds it, Harry drags him forcefully to their next door neighbors to ask shamelessly for as much as salt and ice as they can spare.

After getting the lobster settled in, Harry bustles around Louis, rushing to fix dessert. He gives Louis gentle tips as Louis slowly makes chicken breasts and homemade mash. Though Louis moves around the kitchen with the manner of someone not accustomed to their environment, and has to ask Harry how to whisk, he dons a southern accent as he insists that he is actually Paula Deen, loudly reporting his progress as he cooks.

“Now,” Louis drawls as he places the chicken breasts softly in a hot pan. “Y’all are gonna wanna use plenty of butter for this. That’s how we do things down south.”

Harry laughs. “You know Paula Deen is racist, right? And anyway, you strike me as more of a Cat Cora kinda guy.”

Louis looks at him blankly.

“On Iron Chef?” Harry prompts. “Seriously, you don’t know Cat Cora?”

As it turns out, Louis, like many other college-aged males, has never even watched Iron Chef. Nevertheless, he meows several times in response to the name, and Harry takes this as a very good thing.

After Harry places his tarts in the fridge to set, he spends a good fifteen minutes with his phone, filming Louis as he nearly burns some potatoes, breaks one wine glass, and comes very close to dumping an unholy amount of sugar into the mash. It’s nothing Cat Cora can’t fix.

When the gang comes over and they’ve eaten Louis’ chicken and mash and had Harry’s fruit tarts for dessert, Harry leads the entourage to have a look at their new pet. He looks disconcertingly like a proud parent as he flails his hands around, describing how Louis had suggested they buy the creature on a whim.

Ellie coos and tells them they’re brilliant. Liam can’t be angry because, as Louis argues, they’ve just saved a marine animal from certain death and Harry assures him they know how to take care of the thing— at least for now. Zayn secretly thinks it’s cool and wishes he’d thought of it first. Perrie, a freshman invited by Zayn, asks them what they’ve decided to name the lobster, whether they know if it’s a girl or boy.

“Well,” Harry says, “Neither of us felt inclined to Google lobster genitalia, so we don’t really care? I mean, it doesn’t actually matter for animals.”

“What are we supposed to call it, though?” Niall says.

“Don’t call it ‘it’,” Liam argues passionately, “It’s not an object. According to the Saphir-Worph hypothesis, calling an animal ‘it’ subconsciously makes us think of it as an object. Which it is not.”

“You just called it ‘it’,” Ellie points out, but Zayn smiles proudly at Liam anyway. He’s taught him so well.

“It’s an animal,” Louis says. “The animal doesn’t care what we call it, because it doesn’t even understand us.”

Even though he has a very real point, Liam and Harry look incredibly affronted.

Saving the day with his ever so persuasive logic, Zayn says bluntly, “Give it a name. Then no one has to call it ‘it’. We can call the lobster by its name, and Harry won’t actually have a heart attack when anyone treats it as an object.”

“So,” Harry says to the group a minute later as he smiles at Louis, “We decided to name them Cat, because this lobster is definitely a feisty one.” Harry drawls the last part in a horribly affected Southern accent, effectively making Louis jump at the chance to ridicule him for it while complimenting his voice all the same.

Nobody gets the joke, but Harry doesn’t care. Stubbornly, he wants to keep it that way— keep this inside joke private, warm as it makes him when Louis laughs anytime somebody actually calls the lobster Cat. It’s so fucking ridiculous.

Zayn watches the two of them with open amazement and wonders if Louis is actually as daft as he seems, wonders if he really doesn’t know the way Harry looks at him means he’s in bloody love with him.

The very next day, Liam manages to get them a chiller and 80 gallon tank. He sets it up in the sitting room after Zayn paints a sea floor mural onto the outside backing of the tank, so Cat can feel like she’s back home. Louis smartly points out that Cat has probably never even seen the ocean, let alone be able to remember it. Zayn retaliates by painting his nose red, and they call him Rudolph for the whole day.

After Niall and Ellie pitch in with some big, shiny rocks and Harry sets up his lava lamp next to the tank — because of course Cat likes stupid American 60’s kitsch, much like Harry himself — the tank is effectively set up, and Cat settles in comfortably.

Harry spends the first week of being a new lobster owner badgering Liam about the very best and most nutritious foods he can feed it, and Louis goes with him to buy live worms and shrimp for the addition to their misfit family.

After a guest comes over and wonders about Harry’s very firm insistence they use genderless pronouns out of respect, Harry sticks a post it to the front of the tank reading:

_Not gendered! pronouns: they/them, please!_

_-Cat Cora_

So, Harry and Louis keep a gender neutral lobster in a huge tank. And though it may effectively take up one whole wall by itself, nobody gives them shit because it makes for a great conversation piece, at worst. (And an unspoken commitment between the two of them at best.)

# # #

There’s a loose key in Harry’s laptop keyboard. Fittingly enough, it is the letter ‘h’. He jiggles it irritatedly, again and again as he sighs angrily at the unmoving cursor on the blank screen in front of him. Which isn’t fair, really. That keyboard never did anything to him. It’s been, considering the time Louis spilled hot ramen noodles on it last year, especially kind to him, even. Some keys still stick a little. Regardless, he scowls at it and sighs again, very loudly.

It’s the weekend, the first wave of finals are on the way, Harry has a paper due for philosophy tomorrow and all this is to say is that he is, delicately put, in some deep shit. Open in front of him is a blank page on his word processor, completely white save for his name.

It blinks at him mockingly, _Harry Styles_. He stares at the two words, hoping to glean from them some unexpected inspiration.

Across from Harry sits Zayn, characteristically unhelpful and quiet, leafing through a textbook, moving only to check his phone occasionally. Niall is probably in his room, and he can hear Louis trying to get Liam to make him a sandwich in the kitchen.

It isn’t unusual for everyone to be at home on a Saturday night when they’re this close to finals. Even Niall sometimes cracks open a book. Regardless, Harry can’t help but wish the flat were a little emptier, a little quieter.

The truth is he can’t focus with Louis’ charming voice demanding _don’t be cheap with the mayo, Li, come on_.

Harry sighs and drums his fingers against his laptop until Zayn shushes him loudly. _Rude_. Just as Harry is about to inform him, Louis unexpectedly jumps onto the couch next to Harry and throws an arm over his shoulder.

“What’s up, Hazza? You look constipated.”

Though he’s probably right, Harry scowls at him aggressively, then sighs again massively. He’s been working on this final paper for his philosophy class for two days now, and he’s royally ticked off at his writer’s block. Harry tilts the screen to Louis some.

“I am constipated, but with words,” he whines. “I’m stuck.”

“What are you supposed to be writing about?” Liam comes out of the kitchen and sits next to Zayn.

“Well, it’s extra credit for the final, we’re supposed to pick a quote with some type of moral theme and write an essay about it,” Harry says. “I picked ‘love’ but I can’t think of a quote I like.”

Zayn moves and takes out a bookmark from his textbook, passing it to Harry across the coffee table. “I like this one,” he says simply, and goes back to his textbook.

Louis reads the bookmark in Harry’s hands. “Why would you choose that?” he asks.

“‘ _People must learn to hate, and if they can be learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the heart than its opposite_ ’,” Harry reads. “Nelson Mandela. Well, I suppose it’s because it’s true, isn’t it.”

“Hmm,” Louis says.

“Did you know he was the first person in his family to attend school?” Liam adds, and Zayn smiles at his book in appreciation.

“That’s cool and all,” Louis dismisses, “But I don’t know if I’d choose the same quote.”

“Why not?” Zayn asks and closes his book to look up at this, taking his glasses off.

“Well, it’s kind of idealistic, innit? I mean, it’s nice to say that love is natural, but it doesn’t necessarily feel that way. What’s natural about being in complete lack of control over your emotions, thoughts and interactions with someone, about possibly making a complete fool of yourself?”

“But it is natural,” Zayn frowns slightly. “Love is a need for anybody’s physiological well-being, which makes it natural— and arguably inevitable. It’d be naive to say otherwise.”

“I’m not saying love is bad. Everyone wants to love and be loved, and it is a basic psychological need. But saying it’s natural makes it seem easy, and it’s _anything_ but easy.”

They continue to talk, but Harry pays no attention. He looks for a moment, fairly stunned, at Louis, and a second later his fingers start flying over the keyboard.

Long after Zayn and Louis have finished arguing and everyone has presumably gone to sleep, Harry prints out a finished essay. He tiredly lays himself down on the couch to sleep.

Early the next day, Harry and Niall stand idly outside of class discussing the philosophy final they’ve just taken.

“What’d you answer to the essay question?” Harry asks Niall.

“Essay question?” Niall looks confused. “What essay question?”

“The...the one on the back,” Harry says slowly. “On the descriptivist theory?”

Niall looks aghast for a moment before slapping a hand on his face, and running quickly back to the class. Harry watches him go, and can’t help but laugh.

He can’t know that Louis and Liam are both around the corner, watching him intently. He can’t know what’s about to happen. It’s really not his fault, he’s never been the victim of Louis’ pranks; they’ve always been partners in crime. After all, who else could have possibly dyed Zayn’s hair green that one time?

He has no idea what to think when he hears his name being called out, and sees Louis running towards him with a bouquet of flowers and a huge grin on his face. Out of habit, Harry smiles back and watches Louis wade towards him through a group of students passing by. A few of them watch Louis curiously.

“Edward!” Louis says suddenly and loudly as he kneels in front of Harry unexpectedly, and he holds out the flowers in two hands. “Ever since you friended me on Facebook and we messaged for five hours straight, I’ve known you were the one.” His voice is so loud Harry can feel people all around them listening in, and his neck gets warm.

Harry’s mildly embarrassed and decidedly perplexed, but he laughs as he sees complete strangers getting their phones out to film this. “I’ve known you were the one, I’ve known it from the start. Please marry me, Har– Edward!” Louis’ face is a mash of pure joy and fabricated anxiety in anticipation of Harry’s answer.

Harry realises he’s supposed to say something now, to accept Louis’ proposal, but he’s still fucking laughing. This is so ridiculous.

Instead, he grabs the flowers from Louis’ hands and says loudly, “I’m sorry, I don’t feel the same way, Lewis. But I’ll keep these anyway. Thanks for the thought.”

He runs off blindly and can hear Louis chase him. He can’t know that Liam is behind him shaking his head at the two of them fondly, wondering just how blind two people can be.

# # #

Zayn stretches himself next to Liam, throwing his arms back and popping his shoulders.

“Don’t do that,” Liam chastises from next to him. “You’ll ruin your joints.”

Liam rolls over to Zayn and grabs him at the wrists lightly, keeping his arms pinned down. He places a soft kiss on Zayn’s cheek before biting his bottom lip.

“They’re already ruined. I’ve ruined myself. I am a pile of useless bones.” To prove his point, Zayn slumps into the bed, head falling to the side. Liam brushes the hair off his forehead and looks at him for a moment before he starts kissing him. Zayn pulls back.

“What’s up, babe?” Liam looks at him as he lets go of Zayn’s wrists.

Zayn sighs loudly into the crook of Liam’s neck and rolls towards him. It crosses his mind, and not for the first time, that he hates Louis Tomlinson. He _hates_ him. He takes Liam’s hand between both his own and snuggles into him for warmth, throwing a leg over Liam’s hips.

“I keep wondering if this is actually going to, like, work, y’know?”

Liam wraps an arm around Zayn’s shoulders and turns his head too look at him. “Harry and Louis, you mean?”

“Yeah,” Zayn says, defeated.

He doesn’t know what it means that he’s just stopped an actual make out session with the actual love of his life to talk about Harry and Louis. It’s at best disconcerting, at worst insanity. The fact that Liam lets him makes Zayn fall in love a little-lot more.

“God,” he says tiredly and closes his eyes, and when he breathes in, there’s a second where he’s lost in Liam’s smell. He’s never told Liam before, because it’s more than a little creepy, but Liam almost always smells like freshly cut grass, which just reminds Zayn of summers spent reading comics and learning American slang and giving bad haircuts in the bathtub.

“I love you, y’know?”

Liam leans into him on his elbow and smiles brilliantly, like this is the first time he’s hearing this, not possibly the millionth. He trails a finger down Zayn’s torso and kisses him on the forehead. “I know. I like you quite a bit.”

Zayn pouts, even as he feels himself blush stupidly. And not a soul can blame him, because there’s Liam, and he’s just _looking_ at him.

Zayn reaches out a hand and twists Liam’s nipple harshly.

“Ouch,” Liam says as he catches Zayn’s hand over his chest. “That hurt,” he adds, and Zayn gives him another nipple twist for faking.

Nipple twists are apparently the right way to go, because Liam spreads their hands out and rolls over him, straddling his hips as he holds himself right above Zayn on his forearms.

While there are many obvious reasons having Liam on top of him like this is Zayn’s absolute favourite, the two at the very top of his list are obviously Liam’s biceps.

But if he’s honest— and he’s rarely ever outright about his feelings— there’s always just the right amount weight on him to make him feel small enough. He feels like if Liam crowds in just a little more, just until he completely fills Zayn’s field of vision, he could be convinced to stay here forever; he’d stay in this little cocoon of warmth.

Well, he could certainly be persuaded, provided Liam carries on smirking at him like that.

“I love you,” Liam whispers into his ear, and bites softly into Zayn’s earlobe, pulling before letting go. It makes Zayn want to grind up lazily into Liam, makes him want a lot more, but there’s still something that’s nagging him.

“You didn’t answer,” Zayn insists, and almost cringes when Liam pulls back and sighs softly, resting his chin on Zayn’s chest.

Liam pecks a soft kiss to Zayn’s chest before rolling off of him to the side, keeping their hands tangled. He stays quiet for a minute before speaking, and the only sound in the room is the whirring of the fan overhead.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Liam says softly, “I don’t know how to tell you that sometimes, I guess, you just get it right. But sometimes you don’t, and all the planning and scheming in world couldn’t change that.

“You can try your hardest, but you can’t actually take Louis’ head and turn it, make him look at Harry and tell him: Look at this boy. He is in love with you. Hopelessly, and stupidly, and so bloody obviously. That’s just not how it works.”

Zayn wraps his arms tightly around Liam’s torso, grips onto him as he buries his face into Liam’s neck. He knows this. He _knows_.

He absolutely hates Louis Tomlinson, and he is incredibly sad about it. He feels Liam press a kiss into his hair, and his hold on Liam goes slack at that.

“It’s like that song,” Liam continues lightly, “Like, sometimes it lasts in love, and sometimes it doesn’t instead.”

That makes Zayn laugh reluctantly. Leave it to Liam to butcher a classic Adele lyric.

“It’s _sometimes it hurts_ , babe,” he mumbles.

“Well, the point is the same,” Liam says, and quietly traces a hand over the bumps in Zayn’s spine.

After a minute, Zayn says, “The fact that we’re applying Adele break up songs to a relationship that has yet to actually be a relationship is a bit of a bad sign, innit?”

His head bumps as Liam huffs a laugh. “I’m just saying that maybe letting go of this is the best thing you could do. I don’t know. Maybe a little push will come from somewhere else, or maybe it’ll never happen. I guess you sometimes just have to wait and see.”

So Zayn decides to follow in the footsteps of those greater than him, to stand on the shoulders of giants, if you will. He will take a leaf from the book of a Disney princess before him and let it go, dismayed as it may make him.

And he does let it go, even as he feels it flutter for a moment weakly like a dying bird against his chest. He lets himself go a little too, and kisses Liam back softly. He lets himself grind down, and lets himself want more.

# # #

April falls seamlessly into May and time holds no meaning in the last couple weeks of school. For Harry, days seem to pass in a haze of editing and rewriting final papers, of studying and scrounging the internet for study guides that might be helpful on his tests. And if he never has to hear again about the finer details of how the French traded with the Native Americans, it’ll be sadly too soon. He’s definitely taking History of Rock and Roll next semester.

So it’s Sunday two weeks later, two weeks after Louis proposed to him (and, no, he does not focus on the feeling he gets when he thinks this, he does not. _Pranked_. Louis mercilessly pranked him, and he is absolutely furious at the public humiliation), Harry finds himself on the shores of Lake Erie, milling about a medium sized group on the sandy beach.

Everyone is done enough with finals that the only people who aren’t finished are Liam and Louis. Louis just has a psychology paper, so he has no real need to study, but Liam is unusually chipper as he hikes up the volleyball net.

At this point in the semester Liam usually isn’t seen without his head in a book, and he tends to get very pale and skinny. It may be the fact that this is a gathering for the Key Club, which Liam is president of. This may have something to do with it. Zayn may have also played a hand in things, Harry suspects, as he easily spots his raven hair near Liam. Zayn stands behind Liam as he erects the volleyball net, eyeing him shamelessly.

Niall is carefree as always, though whether this is due to the fact that he is perpetually easygoing or because he has finished his tests is a mystery to Harry. It occurs to him he actually has no idea what Niall studies. He watches as Niall is chased down the sunny beach by Ellie, who seems to be pelting him with seashells. From the looks of things, she’s got one hell of a left arm. It also doesn’t strike him as a game that warrants as much laughter as he hears from them, mainly because it comes off as rather dangerous, but who is Harry to judge?

As he watches Louis testing the water with his big toe, holding himself tightly and frowning childishly at a wave that washes over his foot, wearing nothing but heart-attack inducing board shorts, it occurs to him that he basically lives on the edge of danger.

Eye of the tiger and all that, he supposes.

However, later in the day Harry’s not so convinced he’s on with this dangerous lifestyle of his as he attempts to play volleyball. He tries to keep his head in the game, but how can he?

Louis stands across from him on the opposite team, and he jumps around carelessly spewing trash talk at Harry the whole time, like that’s not just going to get him hard, and like he’s not giving a whole new meaning to the word sunshine.

Bugger him on a pogo stick, Harry thinks recklessly as he watches Louis push the hair out of his face, watches the way the sun seems made to caress Louis’ skin. It’s not the first time the thought occurs to him that Louis Tomlinson is made of actual gold.

Harry adjusts himself as he turns around from the team to grab the stray beach ball. He’s wearing yellow swim trunks, which he may have borrowed from Perrie. Anyway, they’re great at accentuating his curves, and they have _pockets_. They’re also completely useless at hiding boners. He thinks furiously about wrinkled grannies and his mum.

Later, Niall convinces him to get in the water and Louis and Liam follow in tow. Harry walks in slowly, savouring the feeling of the cool water splashing against his knees. Just as he’s about to move forward and plunge into the water, he almost gets knocked over.

It’s Louis, unsurprisingly, who hangs onto Harry tightly and screams loudly.

"Something touched my foot!” He stops for a second as he grabs on tighter to Harry’s neck. He laughs nervously. “Um... Is that a banana in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?”

Harry looks at him, wide-eyed. “Uh, it’s a banana.” He pulls the fruit out of his pocket. “For when I get hungry.”

Louis shakes his head and looks at him in disdain.

“But, I’m also happy to see you,” Harry adds and wiggles his eyebrows at Louis suggestively. Louis laughs and twists Harry’s nipple harshly, jumping off and running towards the shore.

Harry stays in the water and takes turns with Niall trying to grab Liam’s legs and upend him. The sun sets slowly, and by the time they think to get out of the water to eat, Harry’s all wrinkled skin and shivering.

After picking over what food there is left, Harry makes his way to the bonfire and someone hands him a beer bottle on the way. As he settles down in a chair, he can hear Louis recount loudly to the group what could only be his favourite story to tell, ever.

“–call the guy, and he’s like, _fifty_ chickens? So Zayn has to pretend he doesn’t speak English that well, and of course Liam’s off on us for even bringing animals into the flat–”

Harry smiles at the story, mostly because it’s one he’s heard loads of times, and he imagines a time before he moved into the flat, picturing Louis and Zayn laughing uncontrollably as they let loose livestock into a lecture hall.

By the time Harry is on his second beer and people start making s’mores, he moves towards the beach to find Liam. He’s got a question to ask him, but he’s tipsy enough to forget why he wanted Liam in the first place when he finds him.

He finds him in a small group near the shore, sitting with three others. As he gets closer he can make out Zayn leaning against Liam’s shoulder, and they sit on the sand across from Ellie and Niall, who is speaking loudly.

“I saw her all the time, in the art gallery? You know the one with all the paintings of naked birds?” Niall laughs charmingly at that.

“She’d always be there on weekends, always in the same spot, with the same sketchbook,” Niall says fondly.

“You make it sound a lot better than it actually was,” Ellie laughs at him. “Do I need to bring up your pick up lines?”

The group laughs and at some point Harry finds a spot between the two couples, losing his beer bottle in the process. It doesn’t worry him when he realises he’s just in time for the Zayn and Liam special, and it occurs to him how odd it is that he doesn’t know this story, that he’s never thought to ask. Harry supposes it’s because they’ve always seemed like such a sure thing, as though the universe just produced them in some sort of package deal.

“Your turn,” Ellie says to Zayn and Liam. “You’ve yet to tell us just how this situation happened,” she gestures to the two of them.

“Fine,” Zayn says. “I’ll tell it. So, when Liam first started renting out rooms, I was the first person to get one…”

Zayn goes on to tell them, with much smiling at Liam’s embarrassment, how they didn’t talk much in their first couple months.

Every morning, Zayn would sit at the breakfast table doing the New York Times crossword puzzle, and Liam never knew how to start up a conversation with him. So, in true Liam form, he ended up getting the crosswords as well, and he spent several mornings a week pretending to be engrossed in solving them across from Zayn without ever talking to him.

“And one day,” Zayn continues, “he goes, ‘what’s two across?’, and, uh, I guess that was that.”

Niall shakes his head fondly and Ellie almost looks like a proud mother of sorts.

“I sucked at those,” Liam says grimacing. “You’d write your answers down in _pen_ ,” he adds praisefully to Zayn’s pleasure.

So Harry spends his time with the four of them torn between wanting to commit homicide and wanting to cry. Maybe it’s a bit of a guilty pleasure of his, he thinks as he sits in and listens to couples’ stories and wonders if he’ll ever find himself in their place one day. He really should ask Zayn about that self torture thing, one of these days.

As it turns out, he never gets to, and he can’t decide if he’s being saved from himself when he feels a small hand grip on his shoulder and a loud voice whisper in his ear to come walk, _there’s something you need to see._

He gets up, of course, and pretends he doesn’t see everyone watching him leave with Louis.

Louis grips one of Harry’s hands tight and starts running. “Come on, there’s something you need to see,” he says again, and runs in the direction of the water.

Louis slows down when they near the shore and pulls out a torch. He walks a little ahead of Harry and stops, shining the light on a mound of sand in front of his feet.

“Come here,” Louis whispers and points to the mound. “Look.”

Harry comes closer slowly, almost wary of being pranked for a second time until Louis adjusts the torch and Harry realises what he’s looking at.

“Oh, my god. Are these…?”

He can hear Louis’ proud grin in his response. “Turtle eggs? I think so, yeah.”

“Oh, my god,” Harry kneels down next to the mound and looks into the nest, unsure if he should touch any of them. “Aren’t these endangered?”

Louis shrugs, and the light bounces at his movement.

They decide to call reinforcements— or well, Harry decides, mostly because Louis’ brightest idea is to name the eggs. Reinforcement turns out to be Liam, who jogs over when Harry calls him.

“Oh,” Liam exclaims when he sees the nest, “Are those…?”

“Turtle eggs! Real, live baby turtles,” Harry smiles widely. “Can we keep one? They can be Cat’s friend!”

Liam blinks at him. “Harry, these are probably common snapping turtles. They get bigger than your head, of course you can’t keep one.” Liam stands up. “Who found the nest?”

Louis raises his hand. “Me, why?”

“We need to call Animal Protection Services,” Liam says, getting out his phone.

“What? I didn’t do anything to them,” Louis protests. “We were just looking.”

Liam laughs at that. “No, I know. We need to call them so they can watch them till they hatch, so raccoons don’t come and eat them. Looks like there are about forty in there, newly laid.” He walks off, raising his phone in the air trying to get reception.

Louis sighs and sits down next to the nest and Harry does the same.

“Well, there goes Payno, ruining the fun,” Louis says. “Y’know, we could always just take one in our pockets and secretly hatch it in the bathtub.”

“Oh, yeah, that’d totally work,” Harry jokes.

“What, why not?”

“Hmm... ‘So, Liam, just for reference, what exactly do turtles eat, again?’” Harry says, and Louis laughs. “Nah, we’d be better off moving out, getting our own flat. Opening an off the record, hole-in-the-wall type aquarium.”

“Mmm,” Louis nods. “I can see it now. Maybe get a few more lobsters, snag a couple turtles, throw in an octopus or two. We could make millions.”

“It’d all be very underground, of course. I’m thinking minimalistic styling, a type of soft grunge aesthetic, yeah. People would go crazy for that type of thing.”

Louis bobs his head in agreement, and haphazardly throws up a Westside sign. “Cash money, young Harold.”

They laugh, and just as Harry is pulling out his phone to take selfies with the turtle eggs, Zayn comes up to the two of them.

“Hey, guys. The Animal Society people say they can come in the morning but, uh, they’d really appreciate it if someone could stay by the nest until then.”

Harry’s face lights up and he immediately volunteers himself.

Zayn smiles wolfishly, and his white teeth glow in the dark. “Thanks, Harry. And it only makes sense to leave Louis here with you, since he, uh, found the nest. And so you guys can take turns sleeping and driving back. You know what they say, ‘never stay on a beach without a friend!’”

There is a silence.

“You literally just made that up, it doesn’t exist,” Louis says flatly.

Zayn backs away slowly. “Of course it does,” he says. “Pick up a book, Tomlinson!” He waves at them and runs back to the light of the bonfire.

A few minutes later, Ellie comes by with a friend, Perrie, carrying in their arms several bags of crisps, beer bottles, and blankets. The minute Ellie sees the turtle eggs she flings the blankets onto Louis’ head and kneels next to them.

“Aww, they’re so pretty,” Ellie says, almost reaching out to touch them, but stopping herself.

“S’pose I shouldn’t do that,” she says, still looking at the nest. “Anyway, we’ve brought you sustenance for the night, guys. Keep warm and stay safe, don’t let the sharks bite your heads off.”

“Comforting, that,” Louis says, muffled beneath the blankets.

Perrie arranges the food on top of a towel near them, and begins disentangling Louis from the blankets. As she does, Ellie turns quickly to Harry and grabs his hand.

“Good luck,” she whispers and gives him a small smile, squeezing his hand before letting go. Before long, both girls are nothing but a small spot of light down the shore and they can hear cars veering off not much later.

Harry grabs a beer, though he probably really shouldn’t, and settles down as he wraps himself up in a fuzzy blanket. The sound of water breaking against sand makes for calming background noise, and there’s the occasional exclamation or sigh from Louis as he plays a game on his phone.

“Louis,” Harry whispers, pulling on the end of the vowel like he does when he’s had too much to drink.

“Mmm?”

“Tell me your favourite thing,” Harry says, not even knowing what he means to say.

For a few moments Louis says nothing, then Harry hears the click of his phone locking.

“My favourite thing is chocolate ice cream for breakfast,” Louis says, satisfied.

Harry smiles in appreciation. “More.”

“When Liam is nice and fetches me beer so I don’t have to get up in the middle of a match.” Harry chuckles at that.

After a moment of silence, he asks again. “More.”

“Well, if you absolutely insist, Harold, there’s this theory I really like,” Louis says after adjusting his blanket around him, “That at the top of the food chain, nearly everyone in the upper echelons of any industry, I’m talking CEOs and administrators, presidents and the like, well, they’re most likely psychopaths, right? Because it takes that type of emotional disconnection to get where they are, most of the time.”

Harry looks at him, listening, and he lets himself soak up the meagre moments that shine through when it’s so clear why Louis studies what he studies. It’s true that Louis doesn’t get this passionate about many things, but when he does, the moment is sharp in its intensity. Harry’s helpless to watch on.

“Basically, thesepeople,” Louis continues, getting into it, “just go around making millions by not caring about anyone, right? Like this one guy, he took over a company and fired nearly two thirds of the employees to save costs. He’d fire people with a _knock knock joke_. Guess where he is now? Billionaire. I’m telling you, it’s scary stuff.”

“They can’t be that common,” Harry says. “I mean, don’t most of them probably end up in jail anyway?”

Louis looks at him and smiles. “Remember Greg?”

“Who? Greg James?”

Louis nods. “Total psychopath.”

“Bullshit.”

“Is not! He was a complete psychopath, I swear.” Louis laughs at Harry’s doubtful smile.

“You’re taking the piss.”

“Suit yourself. But I’m telling you it’s the truth.” Louis leans back on the sand and takes a sip of his beer.

“Why’d you two break up, anyway?”

When Louis doesn’t answer right away, Harry digs his toes into the dry sand and opens his mouth to change the subject, but Louis speaks up.

“Well, young one,” Louis says pompously as he looks out at the dark lake. “When a man loves another man very much—”

Harry shoves Louis in the shoulder lightly and they laugh.

“I’m kidding. I mean, I don’t know that there was a specific reason... things just slowly deteriorated, and it was like ‘is this even fun for anyone anymore?’ so it just needed to end. Plus, it _would_ be my luck to find out the one guy who’s willing to put up with me for four years is a complete fucking psycho.”

He gives a short laugh at that and downs the rest of his bottle while Harry sits there, not knowing what to say, wondering if maybe _psychopath_ is the term he’s been looking for.

“So, anyway,” Louis continues. “The moral of the story, Harry, is don’t ever date a psychopath. Because the more you give them, the less it means.” Louis pauses, and his words seem to echo in the silence, soft and lilting against the noise of the waves. “And love isn’t supposed to be like that. It shouldn’t mean any less.”

For some reason, in that moment Harry remembers almost jarringly the first day he spent with Louis, when Louis made him tea without sugar and Harry drank it anyway and Louis insisted on giving him a tour of the campus, which really just ended up being a tour of the best places to hang out on campus, all the while teaching Harry ridiculous American street slang, which Louis insisted on calling just that.

He thought he had Louis figured out then, funnily enough.

He realises it’s taken him longer to understand other parts of Louis. Sometimes, like when he gets suddenly quiet, or when he goes on crazy pranking streaks, Harry gets a glimpse of the fact that at some point, maybe somewhere Harry was never around, something or someone had turned Louis into a precariously balanced pyramid of contradictions and self-consciousness, a fleeting kind of doubt that didn’t fit him well at all.

These could have been the moments when Harry fell, albeit with all the grace of a newborn giraffe, for Louis: when he was at his most incurably and insatiably _human_ ; when he let down the great facade he’s spent who knows how long building up. And when he does, Harry doesn’t think Louis knows how breathtaking it is.

# # #

There is nothing, Harry decides, as spectacular as the absolute last day of finals. In fact, he’s spent his whole afternoon picturing it: the moment Liam comes back from his last class.

No more Zayn vehemently and maniacally shushing anyone who makes a sound, taking it upon himself to be Liam’s very own, very silent study cheerleader. No more Louis getting them all into trouble when he sets up Liam’s bedroom door with firecrackers. Well, they only get in trouble because they accidentally go off on Zayn, stupidly enough.

No more Niall complaining about how they can’t have fun because of Liam. It’s all done, and Harry can finally spend a day in front of the telly doing nothing but exclusively watching trash American reality shows. Or at least, that’s what he has planned until Niall informs them differently.

“We’ve gotta go out,” Niall insists, because where alcohol is involved, he can be uncharacteristically insistent. “Li’s almost done with his college years, and we’ve gotta go out with a big bang.”

As it turns out, Louis is much too slow a dresser for this big bang, and by the time Harry peels himself off the sofa cushions and makes himself presentable, Liam, Zayn, and Niall have left without them.

This, Harry supposes, is how he finds himself in this dire situation. Aren’t idle hands the playthings of the devil? Doesn’t he know that? And maybe that saying doesn’t technically apply here, but shouldn’t he know better anyway?

He should, but instead he sits, perched on the edge of Louis’ bed, watching Louis get ready.

Louis stands in front of the mirror, hooking on thin black braces to his trousers. Under them he wears a short sleeved dress shirt with blue and white stripes.

At this point, Harry’s brain is fairly numb.

Louis’ room in itself is a place Harry tries not to frequent, fraught as it is with Louis’ clothes and Louis’ smell and Louis’ bed, and generally speaking, Louis. So he keeps sitting quietly, trying not to spontaneously combust as Louis fixes the final strands of his hair.

“Hazza, come help me with this, yeah?” Louis is half twisted, attempting to snap his braces in place on the back of his trousers.

Harry gets off the bed, takes his time coming up behind Louis, walking for all the world like a man to his fate at the gallows, and takes the metal snap from Louis, brushing fingers.

He snaps it into place without incident and wills himself to keep his hands still, keep his eyes in his fucking head.

He tries, and takes the second metal snap from Louis, but just as he’s about to click it into place, everything goes to hell.

His mind goes into overdrive and he can practically feel the whiplash as his brain suddenly registers the juxtapositioning of his hands against the small of Louis’ back, so near Louis’ arse. Some visceral type of want goes through him as he realizes that he could fit Louis in his hands, could so easily spread his fingers out and squeeze—

He straightens up abruptly and almost knocks into Louis. He catches eyes with him in the mirror, but doesn’t hold his stare as he quickly snaps the braces into place. He doesn’t let himself linger over the fact that he towers over Louis like this, that he could probably put his arms over Louis’ shoulders, and if he stretched a little, he might be able to rest his chin on Louis’ head. He takes a large step back and wobbles back to where he was sitting.

Louis fixes his hair quietly and turns back to Harry.

“Okay, how do I look?” Louis puts his hands on hips and nods expectantly. “Too dressed up?”

Next to Harry’s torn jeans and fairly worn dress shirt, the answer is obvious, but he can barely speak as it is.

“Yes,” Harry says stupidly. Louis blinks at him. “I mean no. No, no. Very, uh, very a la mode, fashionable, yeah.”

Louis raises an amused eyebrow at that and it seems to appease him.

They leave for the club and Harry thanks his lucky stars they make it there in one piece. Louis is wearing braces, for Christ’s sake, and on the way he takes to mindlessly snapping them against his fucking chest.

Harry spends the ride contemplating how hard he’d have to slam his head against the window to effectively become comatose.

Needless to say, after locating the other boys in the club and squeezing into a booth crowded in by Louis, Harry nurses a much needed beer.

That is to say he nurses a few, and by the time Zayn has had enough to drink that he seems to actually be considering dancing and Niall’s nowhere to be seen, presumably off with Ellie, things start to get a little fuzzy for Harry.

Well, to be fair, they’re not _that_ fuzzy. For one, there’s nothing _fuzzy_ about the way Louis’ hand will reach and squeeze his knee after a joke, or how Harry very nearly drops his beer into his lap each time it happens. But it isn’t like Harry has a choice in any of it, it’s not like he can just leave, after all, Louis is in the way. He would _so_ leave, if he just could. Totally. Maybe after another beer.

So he drinks and laughs along, pitching in a joke or two himself.

It starts getting increasingly less funny and, alarmingly, a lot more arousing when Louis lays a warm and solid hand on Harry’s thigh, just above his knee. It happens slowly, so slowly and gradually Harry doesn’t even notice until he actually looks down, sees Louis’ small hand on him, and chokes on nothing.

So close, Harry thinks, and yet so far. He tries not to squirm, or breathe, or generally cause any movement that might disrupt Louis’ hand, and just as he thinks he can’t possibly stand it anymore, he throws all caution to the wind.

“Hey, Lou,” he says, elongating the vowels, taking his chance during a lull in conversation. “Lou, what came first, orange the color, or orange the fruit?”

He’s had enough to drink that it seems pretty clever and he expects a laugh, thank you very much.

“What are you on about,” Louis laughs at Harry’s disappointment.

And while they’re not by any means drunk, they’re loose enough that Harry doesn’t question a thing when Louis squeezes Harry’s thigh under a warm palm, and gives him a sloppy kiss on the cheek.

“You do talk some shit, H,” Louis says to him, “Also, I need to piss like a racehorse,” he winks, and makes for the bathroom.

Just as Harry begins to muse about the meaning of life as he plays with a coaster, a wild Zayn suddenly comes up to him, and he’s spectacularly drunk.

Drunk Zayn is arguably the best Zayn there is, because he’s never as talkative as he is when he’s drunk. Drunk Zayn always insists on buying the next round and always, always unfailingly manages to find a new, embarrassing story to tell about Louis in his freshman days.

“Haz,” Zayn says. “H, Harry. Harry Styles, I have to tell you something!”

Harry looks at him, laughing. “What?”

“You,” Zayn says, and pauses for a second as he coughs, “You ‘ave to go. You have to go tell Louish!”

“What do I have to tell Louish?” Harry laughs and mocks Zayn’s speech.

Zayn laughs like he’s in on the joke, and then looks at him weirdly serious, like he’s sad. “You have to tell him. That you want to have his babies, Harry. You need to,” Zayn cuts off and coughs again, for a few beats. He turns back and raises his voice even more. Harry thanks whatever god exists that Louis isn’t here right now.

“Liam said— my boyfriend, he’s a man,” Zayn adds with a giggle, “He said you might be scared. Don’t be scared, Haz. Sometimes, um, sometimes it doesn’t hurt to be in love, and you get it right. Sometimes it lasts, so you need to _tell Louis_.”

He stresses the last two words and looks into Harry’s eyes earnestly, and Harry suddenly feels like Zayn might start crying.

Zayn’s lower lip trembles a tiny bit, and he takes a sip from the drink in his hand. “You need to tell him you love him because he doesn’t know,” he says finally, staring again.

And Harry thinks that’s fucking ridiculous, thinks that if Louis is really that slow on the uptake, he’s a bloody idiot. Harry hasn’t even _tried_ to be anything but obvious these last few months, wearing his heart on his sleeve. If Louis can see all that and still feels nothing for him, he’s not going to fuck up their friendship for that.

He leaves before Zayn actually loses his mind, and realises he has to piss too, so he goes to the bathroom, figuring he’ll find a line because Louis has been there for a while.

He finds no one there, and when Harry walks in it’s just Louis standing in front of the mirror, fixing his hair.

Harry steps in behind him, and opens his mouth to tell Louis about Zayn, about how absolutely and fantastically sloshed he is and how much Louis needs to see, but what on Earth is he supposed to say?

_Zayn’s so fucking drunk all he can talk about is how much I need to tell you I’m in bloody love with you?_

Instead, he simply stands there behind Louis, who hasn’t noticed him yet, and keeps opening his mouth only to close it several times like a knob head.

It occurs to Harry he doesn’t have to be here, but it occurs to him in the same faraway and vague quality the idea of sleep does halfway through an all nighter: it’s what he probably ought to do, but it’s never going to happen, not in this lifetime.

Sure, it would be easy. After all, he could turn around and walk right out of the bathroom, his bladder can wait a few; he could say something, stop standing there like a fucking fish out of water, half unsure of what to say to Louis; he could just stop staring.

Instead, Harry takes a step forward and their eyes catch in the mirror.

Harry has no idea what does it, but it’s probably the lighting— it has to be the low lighting, the way it accentuates Louis’ cheekbones and makes the concave of his cheeks and the dips of his collarbones shadowed, prominent.

Harry forgets why he’s here, suddenly.

“Harry,” Louis says to Harry’s reflection, and his hands drop from his hair.

He takes another step forward without answering and stands right behind Louis. He’s so close he catches a whiff of cologne, and if he leans forward his nose might brush against Louis’ hair.

Without thinking and very possibly without breathing, he does. Harry leans closer, and if he were seeing clearly he’d see Louis’ Adam’s apple jump in his throat. Harry’s shoulder presses lightly on Louis’ back.

“Mmm?”

Louis’ response to that is to raise a single eyebrow at him questioningly. The move is achingly familiar.

Harry has to close his eyes at that for a second and swallow, caught off guard by the way that small, miniscule movement takes him right back to the night he met Louis, and he can’t help but feel a familiar unease in his stomach, almost like he’s been punched in the gut, or like he’s standing next to the love of his life.

“Please,” Harry whispers quietly into Louis’ hair at his stiffness. “Let me.”

He says this as his hand finds its way to Louis’ belt, and his pinky finger under Louis’ dress shirt, brushing over his hip slowly, making Louis shiver. The tremors press into Harry’s chest.

“Please,” he says with a dry throat, and presses a kiss to Louis’ shoulder.

“Hazza,” says Louis as he lays his hand lightly over Harry’s but not stopping him. “You’re drunk. You wouldn’t...”

He trails off as Harry kisses up the side of his neck, presses his lips behind Louis’ ear and whispers, more certainly now that he can feel Louis pressing back against his chest, Louis’ head laid back on his shoulder, “Do this even if I wasn’t. I would. Always wanted to.”

The second he says it, it feels like he’s taken a weight off his chest, and the feeling is rough and cathartic at the same time.

Harry moves to suck a love bite into Louis’ neck, feeling the way his admission emboldens him. But before his sudden bravado can lead him any further, Louis unexpectedly shrugs himself from Harry’s arms and turns to look at him, concerned.

“What do you mean you’ve always wanted to?”

Harry blinks at Louis. “What do you mean what do I mean?”

“Harry…”

“Oh, don’t be thick,” Harry argues. “You know what I mean.”

Louis laughs almost nervously, and Harry can tell he’s being truthful. “I really don’t, though.”

“I…,” Harry draws out the vowel, trying to think of what to say, a straightforward way to explain his predicament regarding Louis.

“I, uh, like you. A lot. And Zayn thinks you don’t know so I should tell you. So now you know, I guess.” Harry scratches his arm awkwardly. Louis blinks back at him owlishly.

“I mean, I didn’t think you could possibly not know, I was as obvious as I could be. But like Niall says, you can be pretty oblivious. Also, I know this is kind of a bombshell to drop on you in the loo, but now would be a good time for you to say someth—”

“Zayn? Niall?” Louis looks confused for a moment. “They know?”

“Uh, well. Yeah. And Liam.”

“Even _Liam_ knows?”

Harry looks at his feet and coughs awkwardly, unable to keep Louis’ gaze.

“Why didn’t you ju—”

At that moment, the door to the loo opens with a bang, and two people glued to each other’s faces stumble in. One of them, the girl, pushes the other against the wall, and they proceed to grope each other thoroughly.

It is Ellie and Niall. Harry looks at them, horrified, whilst Louis sports an expression usually only seen when he watches the mating parts of animal documentaries: half laughing and half intrigued.

Before the two can notice them, Louis grabs Harry’s hand and they rush out of the loo.

They stand for a moment outside the door, look at each other, and laugh— Louis’ a full bodied chuckle that tells of plenty of giving shit to Niall for possibly years to come, Harry’s slightly unbelieving.

“Well, this has been an eventful time,” Harry says, playing with a ring on his thumb.

“Let’s go home,” Louis says, looking at Harry.

Harry doesn’t object and follows Louis out front to call a cab. He does this mainly because he loves the pain, because the idea of spending time with Louis is still more important to him than self-preservation.

He doesn’t know what that makes him. Is sadist the word? Masochist? Harry has no idea, but it’s definitely something self-destructive.

So like the self-destructive person he is, Harry stands outside in the chill next Louis, who smokes half a cigarette by the time they catch a cab. When it does arrive, they climb in quietly and sit on opposite ends.

After some time Louis turns to Harry.

“You told Zayn before me?”

Louis doesn’t look offended, Harry notes thankfully, just curious.

“He kind of figured it out for himself. I wasn’t, uh, particularly subtle, actually.”

“You told Niall and Liam, too?” Harry shrugs pathetically at that. “Jesus, Harry. How long have they known?”

Harry coughs into a fist. “Not, uh, not long. Y’know.”

“How long is not long, exactly?”

Harry shrugs again, and thank whatever gods may exist because in that moment the cab comes to a stop in front of their building. Harry gets out quickly as Louis pays the cabbie.

Harry stands on the curb, feeling chilly for more reasons than the windy weather, and stares at the entrance doors until he feels Louis stand next to him, shoulder to shoulder.

The sound of the cab’s engine revs and dies down as it drives away, and darkness gradually falls over the street around them.

Later, when Harry’s old enough to laugh at how everything went down, he could swear they stood there for the longest time, just standing next to each other and quietly staring forward. As these things go, however, Harry currently feels as though his legs might actually be made of jello, his stomach one tight knot of nerves.

“It’s been a year,” Harry says quickly, immediately wishing he could set himself on fire, save himself the trouble of living.

Louis doesn’t answer for one long moment. Then, without turning to Harry he says, “Wanna watch a movie?”

Harry could laugh, but he doesn’t.

They make their way into their building and walk to the lift without speaking. Harry presses the button for their floor, and pretends to blow into balled fists from the cold for lack of something to do or say. Louis stands staring at his feet.

Mercifully quick, the lift arrives and dings loudly in the lobby. They step in and Louis presses their floor number.

In all honesty, this is what kept Harry silent for longer than a year: the prospect of living through this creeping quiet awkwardness makes him cringe more than even a sexist joke possibly ever could. He stands in the corner of the lift and stares at Louis’ back and wishes fate could do him the favour of making it quick.

He’d wish for painless, but that’s not even an option at this point.

Leave it to him to fuck up and give a spontaneous confession in the loo of some forgettable club with all the finesse of a college boy fueled pathetically by passionate longing and a shameful amount of alcohol, Harry thinks.

What he’d really hate would be making Louis have to feel as though he needs to let him down lightly, beating around the bush long enough to make Harry possibly lose his mind. He’d like to get some closure, and standing in a too still elevator with Louis turned away from him isn’t exactly how he pictured anything ever happening.

It’s too subtle, for one. In Harry’s imagination, if things ever didn’t work out, they’d always go down in flames, or come out for the better.

Maybe they’d date and they’d be the kind of couple that was just meant to burn each other out; they’d be so good for each other that they’d be bad for each other.

Or maybe, if things _did_ work out, they’d go on one stumbling little movie date after Harry confessed lightly during a cuddle, and they’d share a stupid bucket of popcorn and Harry would hate that it was buttered but wouldn’t care that much because he’d let Louis have it all anyway.

In any case, Harry reminds himself morosely, it doesn’t matter very much anymore.

The doors of the lift slide open to their floor and Harry walks behind Louis, irrationally keeping as quiet as possible. Maybe if Louis doesn’t hear or see him, maybe if he does nothing after already doing so much that’s fucked him over, things can right themselves.

He just...never imagined it quite like this.

Louis steps back to let Harry unlock the door because he forgot his key, and almost immediately goes to his room, claiming the need to change.

Harry goes into the kitchen to down a glass of water before sadly flopping onto the couch, boots and all, holding the remote loosely in one hand without turning on the TV. He sits very still for a moment, keenly quiet.

Okay, so maybe he’s waiting to hear a sound from Louis’ room, what of it? It’s no big deal.

He’s over it anyway, Harry tells himself. He might as well accept the fact that he is that one guy who attempts to get out of the friend zone only to find that maybe the grass isn’t greener on the other side. Everyone has that friend, right? Harry’s that friend— the friend zone fail of humanity. He’s so over it.

He turns on the telly and finds Judge Judy. And yeah, he can get down with this. He is so down with Judge Judy.

Chewing on his thumb for the next quarter hour, Harry zones in and out of attention as a couple on screen fight over something property related. Just as Harry is mulling over changing the channel, feeling too much like that one weekend he spent doing absolutely nothing but watch trash American telly and eating Chinese, Louis’ bedroom door creaks open and Louis comes into the living room looking refreshingly, well...fresh.

His hair is wet, hanging over his forehead, and from the looks of things he’s washed his face. He stands there in a white shirt and grey joggers, looking unfairly attractive.

Harry tries aggressively to not notice. It doesn’t work.

Before Harry thinks to say anything, Louis walks immediately to their DVD collection, scoffing at the program on the telly.

“Let’s see if we can’t get anything of quality to watch tonight, yeah?”

As if, Harry thinks mindlessly. As though Louis weren’t a driving factor in the making of that all nighter marathon where they streamed Keeping Up With the Kardashians, something Harry reminds Louis of now, self-righteously.

He immediately feels more like himself as Louis laughs at the memory and places a DVD in the player, settling comfortably into the couch next to Harry. Out of habit, Harry stretches an arm comfortably around his shoulder, and Louis lays a leg across Harry’s lap.

As the opening credits play, Harry can almost feel his nerves calming. For all his nervousness downstairs, Harry feels weirdly normal now. It’s just another night in front of the telly with Louis, after all. Okay, maybe that’s not exactly true, but _Inception_ is playing, and Harry doesn’t know whether it frustrates him or if it’s the best fortune he’s had in years that he’s admitted being completely smitten with his gay best friend and still gets to do _this_ , at the very least. He gets to sit next to Louis on the couch, isn’t that enough?

Was he expecting flowers and a flamboyant declaration of love right back? (Okay, _maybe_ he was. And maybe that was a smudge farfetched, but a boy can dream.)

Letting himself consciously relax, Harry almost starts enjoying the delight that is Leonardo DiCaprio when Louis interrupts the film, sounding suspiciously casual.

“Did you, uh, mean what you said? About—... _that long_ , really?”

Harry pouts at that. “Please, rub in how pathetic I’ve been, why don’t you?”

Louis smiles apologetically in response, nudging Harry’s shoulder with his own. Harry turns his attention back to the movie until Louis interrupts again.

“It makes sense,” Louis says slowly. For a moment, Harry almost thinks Louis is talking to himself.

“...what?”

“It makes sense,” Louis repeats more surely, looking at him. He takes Harry’s hand, squeezes, and lets go. “It makes sense. There’s no reason we shouldn’t like each other, and—”

“You like me?”

“—I mean, we’re compatible. We’re good friends,” Louis says. “Everyone needs someone eventually—”

“Could you go back to the part where you like me?”

“I didn’t say that,” Louis says, rolling his bottom lip between two fingers. “I said there’s, uh, no reason I shouldn’t.”

“Pretty sure you said you liked me,” Harry insists. “Pretty sure?”

There is a pause and Louis doesn’t answer. Harry looks intensely at him.

“Well, why shouldn’t I?” Louis scoffs and flicks some hair off his face. Harry could swear Louis’ cheeks are tinged with pink.

“I mean, you’re nice, you can cook,” Louis adds with a shrug. “You’re tall, dark, and handsome,” Louis tacks on, narrowing his eyes playfully. “My kinda guy.”

“Lou,” Harry says with stern eyebrows. “Be serious.”

Louis smiles widely at that. “I am being serious, Haz.”

Internally panicking at his inability to find a response in the moment to Louis being open with him, Harry turns back to the television and pretends to watch.

Not a minute later he turns back to Louis, who is still looking at him, and narrows his eyes, trying not to smile prematurely. “Seriously, though?”

Louis smiles, but doesn’t take the bait. He hums and goes back to watching the movie.

Just as Harry can’t stand the silence and is putting together a line that will simultaneously make Louis confess undying love to him and also cuddle him, Louis turns to him, and kisses him squarely on the mouth. His lips are dry and quick, so quick Harry wouldn’t believe it happened except for how his lips feel like they’re on fire. He swallows dryly.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Harry can’t remember any time it was this hard to keep eye contact with Louis.

“It means I like you, you prick,” Louis says obviously.

Harry blinks at him, and at least thirty different variations of the question ‘are you sure?’ run through his mind.

“That was a shitty first kiss,” is what he says instead. Louis raises his eyebrows in amusement.

“Second,” Louis corrects, turning to Harry. “That was a second kiss.”

Harry coughs lightly into a fist. “You call either of those a kiss? A bit disappointing, if I’m honest.”

“Disappointing? Really?” Louis tilts his head. Harry swallows loudly.

“Uh. Yes. That’s, yes, that’s what I—”

Louis turns to Harry, assessing him almost critically. Maddeningly slow, he moves himself so that he sits over Harry’s lap looking him dead in the eye.

Louis reaches over Harry, holding onto the couch behind him and leans in until they are cheek to cheek, chest to chest and it almost feels like they’re hugging. Harry can feel the rise and fall of Louis’ breaths against him, and imagines Louis can feel the tattoo of his heartbeat drumming between them.

If this is what happens when he insults Louis’ kissing skills, why the fuck didn’t he just do it before? It definitely would have saved him some time, not to mention much needed dignity.

Slowly, Louis turns so that Harry can feel warm breath on the side of his neck. He tries not to squirm under Louis, passingly wondering if this might actually be a jarringly vivid dream he’s having.

He soon finds it isn’t, because the second Louis presses warm open lips lightly on his neck it’s as though he’s some type of broken bobble head, and his cheek ends up against Louis’ forearm, leaving his neck exposed.

Harry lets out a sharp breath, feeling tightly wound by anticipation. He waits for Louis to do something more or say anything, but it never happens. In a split second, Harry’s mind runs to thoughts of how ridiculous he must look like this and how Louis is probably staring at him, wondering how this even happened. He looks quickly at Louis and tries not to seem panicked.

He finds Louis looking back at him, assessing.

“ _Disappointing_ , huh? I’ve been told aggressive, but never,” Louis says leaning closer. “Never disappointing.”

“That really got to you?” Harry can’t help but smile widely, partly because Louis doesn’t seem to be second guessing anything other than his own kissing, and partly because of how obviously serious Louis is taking this.

“Jesus, Louis, I was kidding. Those were probably two of the biggest highlights of my life.” Harry admits this easily because at this point it has become mandatory to make Louis aware of how very devastatingly gone he is. It’s practically procedure at this point.

Louis’ reaction to this almost tips Harry over the edge enough to make him laugh. He looks funnily pleased with himself, a sure little smile nestled on his face, just cocky enough Harry feels himself get hard in his trousers. He sends up a fervent prayer Louis can’t feel anything from on top of him.

“Should probably make your life highlights a little more worthy from now on, yeah?” Louis places a thumb on Harry’s chin, tilting his face down. He moves closer so slowly Harry doesn’t understand how they’re not kissing yet. He realises vaguely he’s supposed to have a response to that.

“We— Um, I’ll keep that in mind.”

For one seemingly never-ending second, Louis is still right in front of him, their mouths close enough that Harry can feel the warmth of Louis breathing. If he just looked up a little, their mouths might slot together easily, but Louis still has a finger holding him.

When he finally does lean in and press his lips against Harry’s, Harry feels torn: slack and taut at the same time, almost like he’s never been kissed, but like this might be one of the most natural things he’s ever done. For fuck’s sake, it may as well be his first kiss with the way he gasps at the feel of Louis’ tongue, but there’s something about the way his hands find their way on Louis’ body, one on Louis’ hip and one on the back of his neck like he’s done this for years (or imagined it for one.)

Louis takes Harry’s bottom lip between his own and sucks enough to make Harry let out a noise high enough it takes him a second to realise he made it. He lets out a sigh as he moves a hand to Louis’ jaw, feeling stubble under his fingertips.

Louis’ kisses, unsurprisingly, are a lot like how he is as a person: he takes control like he knows it drives Harry insane, holding Harry firmly in place with two hands as he licks into his mouth slowly and meticulously, and a little like he’s trying to memorize every curve of Harry’s lips.

There’s an undeniable dichotomy in Louis’ body Harry finds as his hands move: the way Louis’ curves give yieldingly to muscular thighs and the way Harry feels Louis’ stomach clench tightly, every bit as overwhelming as he’s imagined it to be every time he runs a hand between them.

Harry bites sharply into Louis’ bottom lip and becomes momentarily enthralled by how Louis’ eyes seem to change at that, the way his usually soft eyes become absolutely filthy in the turn of a moment. He finds unwillingly that he can’t linger on the thought.  There are more pressing things to handle; for one, Louis’ humping down into Harry’s thighs repeatedly, frantic as a high school boy on prom night.

“Slow your roll,” Harry laughs, leaning back to take off his shirt. He sees the way Louis’ eyes follow him. Louis looks back at him with a smile Harry can only, in this present state, describe as almost shy. It turns Harry on more than it probably should.

“Lou,” Harry says, panting into his mouth. “Lou—”

Louis kisses him twice more before answering, sounding just as winded. “Yeah?” His hands are moving over Harry’s chest, rubbing against his nipples, making it hard to concentrate.

“I wanna give you a blowjob. Can I..?” Harry trails off to suck a love bite onto Louis collarbone, barely believing he can do this and reveling in the way Louis’ body curves, pressing down onto Harry’s erection.

Louis moans softly, though whether it’s from what Harry said or Harry currently toying with a nipple through his shirt is unclear. It isn’t that important really, as long as Louis keeps looking like this might be affecting him as much as it does Harry.

Louis puts a hand on Harry’s hair, gently making him look up.

“You sure?” Louis looks unsure as to whether he should be asking this. Harry looks at him blankly.

“I’ve wanted this since I met you, if we’re being honest.”

Louis smirks.

“If I remember correctly, I did too. Then you had to complicate things by _living_ here and being a _nice friend_ and whatnot.”

“Oh, the pain you must have gone through, you poor soul.” Harry rolls his eyes with a smile.  “Take your shirt off,” he says sweetly, “Before I change my mind.”

Louis is shirtless and on his back on the sofa in under a minute. It’s actually quite impressive, Harry thinks, the things the promise of a blowjob can do to a man. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen Louis move that quickly in all the time he’s known him.

For a heady moment, it seems more than he can bear to know what Louis looks like when he’s laid out and vulnerable like this. Harry revels in the thought that he is privy to this very moment and that he alone at this second knows what it feels like to have Louis looking at him like this, having been kissed raw by him; privy to the way his hips give a stunted half grind, half roll every time Harry leans forward and licks desperately into his mouth.

Most of the time, admittedly, Harry had thought of being on the receiving end. For one reason or another, he’d mostly pictured himself getting blowjobs, getting fingered, getting fucked, just because Louis exudes that kind of aura, Harry supposes.

But there’s a moment, a tiny increment in time, when Harry stills on his knees in front of Louis and it feels like something settling into place or like finding something that speaks innately to your soul. It feels right.

Harry takes a deep breath before moving forward, putting a hand on Louis’ thigh. It seems Louis takes that as some sort of signal, and moves to take down his joggers.

Harry quickly stops him with a smile, and wordlessly moves Louis’ hand away gently. Biting into his bottom lip, he glances up at Louis several times as he takes his time sliding them down over his thighs.

“No pants?” Harry says with a raised eyebrow and small grin. Louis looks back at him almost defiantly.

“It’s—” He cuts himself off with a shallow breath when Harry wraps a hand around his cock. “Hot,” Louis finishes breathlessly as Harry strokes down his shaft twice, then pulls back to lick his palm.

With two hands, Harry strokes Louis and runs a light thumb on the sensitive skin under his balls, hearing nothing but Louis taking short, heavy breaths. As he looks up at Louis in the eyes he leans down and kisses the skin under his belly button softly, grazing his teeth. The way Louis’ hips give a small roll at that has Harry squirming uncomfortably

Though his original plan was to tease Louis at least half as much as he feels Louis deserves, Harry immediately takes the head of Louis’ cock into his mouth and moans, making Louis’ legs twitch. Harry holds a hand there to keep him still. With his other hand, Harry reaches up and gropes to find Louis’ nipple, rubbing it with a thumb.

As he swallows down Louis’ length in one slow, smooth motion, Harry can feel his grip on Louis’ thigh involuntarily tighten until the skin around his hand is almost white. Louis puts a hand on top of his, and Harry turns to intertwine their fingers. Feeling a warmth in his stomach, Harry holds on tighter to Louis’s hand and forces himself to swallow around him before he says something he might regret.

As Louis’ hips begin to move erratically in time with Harry’s bobbing, he runs his hand over Louis’ chest, down his side, and rests on Louis’ hip with a soft but sure grip to keep him in place.

Louis comes all over his stomach with a surprisingly soft whine that Harry makes a note he has to record next time. He’s hard enough that he doesn’t realise he’s already getting ahead of himself and planning a next time.

Harry giggles suddenly. Louis looks at him, unimpressed.

“I was just thinking...Niall would be proud,” Harry says with a smile.

“I don’t really want to think about Niall when I’m covered in come, Harry.”

“No, I mean, me neither, definitely. But I just meant...we really ended this semester with a _bang_.” Harry says this with a wide smile and looks at Louis, awaiting eagerly to be showered with compliments on his ingeniousness.

“Oh my God,” Louis groans, and smacks a pillow halfheartedly on Harry’s head. “I _knew_ you were going to make a pun. Why did I know you were going to make a pun?”

# # #

“Rock, paper, scissors,” Zayn intones in a low voice as he sits outside his apartment door. Liam sits across from him, bopping his hand in a shape presumably meant to resemble either a rock, paper, or scissors.

“What is that supposed to _be_?”

Liam smiles at him in response.

“A drone,” he says nonsensically and traps Zayn’s hand in his own. “It wins everything.”

Zayn is still tipsy enough that he thinks it’s funny, and halfheartedly wrestles with Liam. He loses, of course.

After a while, Liam lies down, resting his head on Zayn’s thigh. Carding his fingers through Liam’s hair, Zayn sighs.

“Can’t we just sneak in really quietly? I just want to sleep,” Zayn mumbles and yawns.

“You can take your chances, but I definitely don’t want to walk in on that,” Liam says as he yawns back. “At least they thought to put a sock.”

Zayn humphs at that and looks at the worn old gray thing on the doorknob. “Yeah, _my_ sock,” he says sourly as he uses both hands to fashion Liam a faux hawk. “Who do you think tops?”

That makes Liam laugh loudly, and Zayn claps a hand quickly over his mouth.

“You think they’re really gonna,” Liam raises his eyebrows, and makes the universal gesture for penetration with his fingers. “Do it right away?”

That makes Zayn chuckle. “Oh, look at the blushing virgin,” he says as he ruffles Liam’s hair. “Of course they are. Harry’s had a raging boner for Louis since the second he laid eyes on him, poor kid.”

Liam hums in sympathy.

“Speaking of,” Zayn whispers with a raised eyebrow as Liam looks up at him. “Remember the first blowjob I gave you?” Zayn closes his eyes and hums fondly. “That kitchen table has seen some shit, man.”

Liam smiles, then grimaces and covers his face with both hands, groaning. “I came in your _hair_.”

With the complete opposite reaction he had when the incident actually happened, Zayn laughs lightly. Still smiling, he moves from under Liam and lies down next to him, propping his head on his arm and resting a hand in the concave of Liam’s stomach.

“It really isn’t funny,” Liam says, still looking slightly pained. “You didn’t talk to me for a week.”

Zayn leans his head down and rest his nose on the curve of Liam’s jaw, and whispers.

“Tell you somethin’?”

“Mmm?”

“I’d do it again,” Zayn says softly. He drags his hand over Liam’s stomach and palms him slowly over his jeans. Liam’s hips jerk.

“ _Zayn_ ,” Liam whispers with concern. “Anybody— Jesus Christ, Z, there are cameras.”

Just as Zayn opens his mouth to inform Liam that’s the whole point, footsteps echo down the hallway.

Zayn and Liam still immediately, and Niall comes into view. He sits quietly next to the two of them against the wall, pointedly looking at Zayn’s hand on Liam’s crotch.

“Louis definitely tops,” Niall says, after a short silence. “Definitely.”

# # #

A week later, Louis says it. If Harry didn’t know any better, he would say it had been completely casual, but Louis keeps glancing over at him in short bursts, checking his reaction.

Harry smiles down at Louis. “Are you sure? It hasn’t been that long,” he shrugs. “You don’t have to say that cause you think I want you to, you know?”

“I know.”

“Are you really, really sure? Like, I snore at night. And I can get really naggy. I’m also quite notorious for telling a bad pun or two.” Louis snorts at that, and Harry isn’t sure why he’s trying to sabotage himself.

“Don’t do that,” Louis says after a minute, surprisingly soft.

“Do what?”

“Sell yourself short.” Louis squeezes his hand, “Plus, Harry, we’ve literally been best mates for ages. I already know all that about you, dickhead.”

They walk a little more.

Harry grabs Louis’ hand, encompassing it with his own.

“Okay,” he says, and squeezes tightly. “Boyfriends.”

And they are. After all, there’s no reason they shouldn’t be. (Until they’re not, and they’re fiancées. Until they’re husbands. Until they’re fathers, and they’re a lot of things, but they’re always in love, and always stupidly, stupidly so).

**Author's Note:**

> This is the longest fic I have ever published. There is _no_ way this fic would have ever seen the light of day without these amazing people.  
> [Nicole](http://oldladyalmighty.tumblr.com), who is the absolute most amazing Beta in the world, you can't fight me on this. Please stay forever. _You're the actual best._  
> [Sarah](http://letstalkaboutharrysbuns.tumblr.com), for sweet late night assurances, holding my hand, letting me have a Louis in braces breakdown, and for your attention to detail. _Stay sweet_  
> [Keri](http://icanhazzalou.tumblr.com), for reading, being incredibly nice about it, and being an ace step-in Britpick. _Thank you_  
>  Mels, Sabrine, and Niamh: thank you for your help on short notice!
> 
> things that should be noted:
> 
> -paula deen is only named here for comedic effect  
> -the lobster care here is sliiightly inaccurate, please do NOT do this without more research  
> -Louis’ theory here on psychopaths is from Jon Ronson’s The Psycopath Test, which he was funnily enough papped holding. I read it first, of course.  
> -for any psych/soc freaks like myself, i am aware Liam somewhat butchers the Zeigarnik effect and the Saphir-Worf hypothesis here, but what can ya do.  
> -the lobster scene was somewhat inspired by [this tumblr post](http://kremkumquat.tumblr.com/post/92478384528/when-my-dad-was-in-college-he-had-a-friend-who)
> 
>  
> 
> if u wanna be my lover, im abandonedpizzacrust on tumblr :)


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